EWHORNUNG 


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OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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BOOKS  BY  E.  W.  HORNUNG 

Published   bv   CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

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FATHERS    OF    MEN 


M  CAUf.  UKUAEY,  LOS  ANGELF 


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FATHERS  OF  MEN 


BY 

E.  W.  HORNUNG 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1912 


.•v»*» 


COPTEIGHT,   1912,  BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
Publiahed  February,  1912 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Behind  the  Scenes 1 

II.  Change  and  Chance 11 

III.  Very  Raw  Material 21 

IV.  Settling  In 33 

V.  Nicknames 43 

VI.  Boy  to  Boy 63 

VII.  Reassurance      62 

VIII.  Likes  and  Dislikes 75 

IX.  Coram  Populo 90 

X.  Elegiacs 105 

XI.  A  Merry  Christmas       123 

XII.  The  New  Year 133 

XIII.  The  Haunted  House 146 

XIV.  "Summer-Term" 163 

XV.  Sprawson's  Masterpiece 174 

XVI.  Simiua  Simiubus 186 

XVII.  The  Fun  of  the  Fair 196 

V 


2130485 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAaB 

XVIII.    Dark  Horses 212 

XIX.    Fame  and  Fortune 225 

XX.    The  Eve  of  Office 240 

XXI.    Out  of  Form 250 

XXII.    The  Old  Boys'  Match 259 

XXIII.  Interlude  in  a  Study 266 

XXIV.  The  Second  Morning's  Play 277 

XXV.    Interlude  in  the  Wood 290 

XXVI.    Close  of  Play 304 

XXVII.    The  Extreme  Penalty 317 

XXVIII.    "Like  Lucifer" 328 

XXIX.    Chips  and  Jan '.    ...  336 

XXX.    His  Last  Fung      349 

XXXI.    Vale      360 


FATHERS    OF   MEN 


FATHERS  OF  MEN 

CHAPTER  I 

BEHIND   THE   SCENES 

The  two  new  boys  in  Heriot's  house  had  been  suitably 
entertained  at  his  table,  and  afterwards  in  his  study  with 
bound  volumes  of  Punch.  Incidentally  they  had  been 
encouraged  to  talk,  with  the  result  that  one  boy  had 
talked  too  much,  while  the  other  shut  a  stubborn  mouth 
tighter  than  before.  The  babbler  displayed  an  exuberant 
knowledge  of  contemporary  cricket,  a  more  conscious  sense 
of  humour,  and  other  little  qualities  which  told  their  tale. 
He  opened  the  door  for  Miss  Heriot  after  dinner,  and  even 
thanked  her  for  the  evening  when  it  came  to  an  end. 
His  companion,  on  the  other  hand,  after  brooding  over 
Leech  and  Tennielwith  a  sombre  eye,  beat  a  boorish  retreat 
without  a  word. 

Heriot  saw  the  pair  to  the  boys'  part  of  the  house. 
He  was  filling  his  pipe  when  he  returned  to  the  medley 
of  books,  papers,  photographic  appliances,  foxes'  masks, 
alpen-stocks  and  venerable  oak,  that  made  his  study  a 
little  room  in  which  it  was  difficult  to  sit  down  and  im- 
possible to  lounge.  His  sister,  perched  upon  a  coffin-stool, 
was  busy  mounting  photographs  at  a  worm-eaten  bureau, 

"  How  I  hate  our  rule  that  a  man  mayn't  smoke  before 
1 


2  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

a  boy!"  exclaimed  Heriot,  emitting  a  grateful  cloud. 
"And  how  I  wish  we  didn't  have  the  new  boys  on  our 
hands  a  whole  day  before  the  rest!" 

"I  should  have  thought  there  was  a  good  deal  to  be 
said  for  that,"  remarked  his  sister,  intent  upon  her  task. 

"  You  mean  from  the  boys'  point  of  view  ? " 

"  Exactly.  It  must  be  such  a  plunge  for  them  as  it  is, 
poor  things." 

"  It's  the  greatest  plunge  in  life,"  Heriot  vehemently 
agreed.  "But  here  we  don't  let  them  make  it;  we  think 
it  kinder  to  put  them  in  an  empty  bath,  and  then  turn  on 
the  cold  tap — after  first  warming  them  at  our  own  fireside! 
It's  always  a  relief  to  me  when  these  evenings  are  over. 
The  boys  are  never  themselves,  and  I  don't  think  I'm 
much  better  than  the  boys.  We  begin  by  getting  a  false 
impression  of  each  other." 

Heriot  picked  his  way  among  his  old  oak  things  as  he 
spoke;  but  at  every  turn  he  had  a  narrow  eye  upon  his 
sister.  He  was  a  lanky  man,  many  years  her  senior;  his 
beard  had  grown  grey,  and  his  shoulders  round,  in  his 
profession.  A  restless  energy  marked  all  his  movements, 
and  was  traceable  in  the  very  obstacles  to  his  present 
perambulations;  they  were  the  spoils  of  the  inveterate 
wanderer  from  the  beaten  track,  who  wanders  with  open 
hand  and  eye.  Spectacles  in  steel  rims  twinkled  at  each 
alert  turn  of  the  grizzled  head;  and  the  look  through  the 
spectacles,  always  quick  and  keen,  was  kindly  rather  than 
kind,  and  just  rather  than  compassionate. 

"  I  liked  Carpenter,"  said  Miss  Heriot,  as  she  dried  a 
dripping  print  between  sheets  of  blotting-paper. 

"  I  like  all  boys  until  I  have  reason  to  dislike  them." 

"  Carpenter  had  something  to  say  for  himself." 

"There's  far  more  character  in  Rutter." 

"He  never  opened  his  mouth." 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  3 

"  It's  his  mouth  I  go  by,  as  much  as  anything." 

Miss  Heriot  coated  the  back  of  the  print  with  starch, 
and  laid  it  dexterously  in  its  place.  A  sheet  of  foolscap 
and  her  handkerchief — an  almost  unfeminine  handkerchief 
— did  the  rest.     And  still  she  said  no  more. 

"You  didn't  think  much  of  Rutter,  Milly?" 

"  I  thought  he  had  a  bad  accent  and " 

"Goon." 

"Well — to  be  frank — worse  manners!" 

"  Milly,  you  are  right,  and  I'm  not  sure  that  I  oughtn't 
to  be  frank  with  you.  Let  the  next  print  wait  a  minute. 
I  like  you  to  see  something  of  the  fellows  in  my  house; 
it's  only  right  that  you  should  know  something  about  them 
first.  I've  a  great  mind  to  tell  you  what  I  don't  intend 
another  soul  in  the  place  to  know." 

Heriot  had  planted  himself  in  British  attitude,  heels  to 
the  fender. 

Miss  Heriot  turned  round  on  her  stool.  She  was  as  like 
her  brother  as  a  woman  still  young  can  be  like  a  rather 
elderly  man;  her  hair  was  fair,  and  she  had  not  come  to 
spectacles;  but  her  eyes  were  as  keen  and  kindly  as  his 
own,  her  whole  countenance  as  sensible  and  shrewd. 

"You  can  trust  me,  Bob,"  she  said. 

"  I  know  I  can,"  he  answered,  pipe  in  hand.  "  That's 
why  I'm  going  to  tell  you  what  neither  boy  nor  man  shall 
learn  through  me.  What  type  of  lad  does  this  poor  Rutter 
suggest  to  your  mind  ?  " 

There  was  a  pause. 

"I  hardly  like  to  say." 

"  But  I  want  to  know." 

"Well — then — I'm  sure  I  couldn't  tell  you  why — but 
he  struck  me  as  more  like  a  lad  from  the  stables  than 
anything  else." 

"What   on   earth   makes   you    think   that?"    Heriot 


4  FATHERS  OF  MExN 

spoke    quite    sharply    in    his    plain    displeasure    and 

surprise. 

"I  said  I  couldn't  tell  you,  Bob.     I  suppose  it  was  a 

general  association  of  ideas.     He  had  his  hat  on,  for  one 

thing,  when  I  saw  him  first;   and  it  was  far  too  large  for 

him,  and  crammed  down  almost  to  those  dreadful  ears! 

I  never  saw  any  boy  outside  a  stable-yard  wear  his  hat 

like  that.     Then  your  hunting  was  the  one  thing  that 

seemed  to  interest  him  in  the  least.    And  I  certainly 

thought  he  called  a  horse  a  'hoss'!" 

"So  he  put  you  in  mind  of  a  stable-boy,  did  he?" 
"Well,  not  exactly  at  the  time,  but  he  really  does  the 

more  I  think  about  him." 

"That's  very  clever  of  you,  Milly — because  it's  just 

what  he  is." 

Heriot's  open  windows  were  flush  with  the  street,  and 

passing  footfalls  sounded  loud  in  his  room;    but  at  the 

moment  there  were  none;   and  a  clock  ticked  ofiiciously 

on  the  chimneypiece  while  the  man  with  his  back  to  it 

met  his  sister's  eyes. 

"  Of  course  you  don't  mean  it  literally  ?  " 

"Literally." 

"  I  thought  his  grandfather  was  a  country  parson  ?  " 

"A  rural  dean,  my  dear;   but  the  boy's  father  was  a 

coachman,  and  the  boy  himself  was  brought  up  in  the 

stables  until  six  months  ago." 
"The  father's  dead,  then?" 
"He  died  in  the  spring.     His  wife  has  been  dead 

fourteen  years.     It's  a  very  old  story.     She  ran  away  with 

the  groom." 

"But  her  people  have  taken  an  interest  in  the  boy?" 
"  Never  set  eyes  on  him  till  his  father  died," 
"Then  how  can  he  know  enough  to  come  here?" 
Heriot  smiled  as  he  pulled  at  his  pipe.     He  had  the 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  5 

air  of  a  man  who  has  told  the  worst.  His  sister  had  taken 
it  as  he  hoped  she  would;  her  face  and  voice  betokened 
just  that  kind  of  interest  in  the  case  which  he  already  felt 
strongly.  It  was  a  sympathetic  interest,  but  that  was  all. 
There  was  nothing  sentimental  about  either  of  the  Heriots; 
they  could  discuss  most  things  frankly  on  their  merits; 
the  school  itself  was  no  exception  to  the  rule.  It  was 
wife  and  child  to  Robert  Heriot — the  school  of  his  man- 
hood— the  vineyard  in  which  he  had  laboured  lovingly  for 
thirty  years.  But  still  he  could  smile  as  he  smoked  his 
pipe. 

"Our  standard  is  within  the  reach  of  most,"  he  said; 
"  there  are  those  who  would  tell  you  it's  the  scorn  of  the 
scholastic  world.  We  don't  go  in  for  making  scholars. 
We  go  in  for  making  men.  Give  us  the  raw  material  of 
a  man,  and  we  won't  reject  it  because  it  doesn't  know  the 
Greek  alphabet — no,  not  even  if  it  was  fifteen  on  its  last 
birthday!  That's  our  system,  and  I  support  it  through 
thick  and  thin;  but  it  lays  us  open  to  worse  types  than 
escaped  stable-boys." 

"This  boy  doesn't  look  fifteen." 

"  Nor  is  he — quite — much  less  the  type  I  had  in  mind. 
He  has  a  head  on  his  shoulders,  and  something  in  it  too. 
It  appears  that  the  vicar  where  he  came  from  took  an 
interest  in  the  lad,  and  got  him  on  as  far  as  Csesar  and 
Euclid  for  pure  love." 

"That  speaks  well  for  the  lad,"  put  in  Miss  Heriot, 
impartially. 

"I  must  say  that  it  appealed  to  me.  Then  he's  had 
a  tutor  for  the  last  six  months;  and  neither  tutor  nor 
vicar  has  a  serious  word  to  say  against  his  character.  The 
tutor,  moreover,  is  a  friend  of  Arthur  Drysdale's,  who  was 
captain  of  this  house  when  I  took  it  over,  and  the  best  I 
ever  had.    That's  what  brought  them  to  me.    The  boy 


6  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

should  take  quite  a  good  place.  I  should  be  very  glad  to 
have  him  in  my  own  form,  to  see  what  they've  taught  him 
between  them.  I  confess  I'm  interested  in  him;  his 
mother  was  a  lady;  but  you  may  almost  say  he  never  saw 
her  in  his  life.  Yet  it's  the  mother  who  counts  in  the 
being  of  a  boy.  Has  the  gentle  blood  been  hopelessly 
poisoned  by  the  stink  of  the  stables,  or  is  it  going  to  triumph 
and  run  clean  and  sweet  ?  It's  a  big  question,  Milly,  and 
it's  not  the  only  one  involved." 

Heriot  had  propounded  it  with  waving  pipe  that 
required  another  match  when  he  was  done;  through  the 
mountain  tan  upon  his  face,  and  in  the  eager  eyes  behind 
the  glasses,  shone  the  zeal  of  the  expert  to  whom  boys  are 
dearer  than  men  or  women.  The  man  is  rare;  rarer  still 
the  woman  who  can  even  understand  him;  but  here  in 
this  little  room  of  books  and  antique  lumber,  you  had  the 
pair. 

"I'm  glad  you  told  me,"  said  Miss  Heriot,  at  length. 
"  I  fear  I  should  have  been  prejudiced  if  you  had  not." 

"My  one  excuse  for  telling  you,"  was  the  grave 
rejoinder.  "No  one  else  shall  ever  know  through  me;  not 
even  Mr.  Thrale,  unless  some  special  reason  should  arise. 
The  boy  shall  have  every  chance.  He  doesn't  even  know 
I  know  myself,  and  I  don't  want  him  ever  to  suspect. 
It's  quite  a  problem,  for  I  must  keep  an  eye  on  him  more 
than  on  most;  yet  I  daren't  be  down  on  him,  and  I  daren't 
stand  up  for  him;  he  must  sink  or  swim  for  himself." 

"I'm  afraid  he'll  have  a  bad  time,"  said  Miss  Heriot, 
picking  a  print  from  the  water  and  blotting  it  as  before. 
Her  brother  had  seated  himself  at  another  bureau  to  write 
his  letters. 

"I  don't  mind  betting  Carpenter  has  a  worse,"  he 
rejoined  without  looking  up. 

"  But  he's  so  enthusiastic  about  everything  ?  " 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  7 

"That's  a  quality  we  appreciate;  boys  don't,  unless 
there's  prowess  behind  it.  Carpenter  talks  cricket  like  a 
LUlywhite,  but  he  doesn't  look  a  cricketer.  Rutter 
doesn't  talk  about  it,  but  his  tutor  says  he's  a  bit  of  a 
bowler.  Carpenter  beams  because  he's  got  to  his  public 
school  at  last.  He  has  illusions  to  lose.  Rutter  knows 
nothing  about  us,  and  probably  cares  less;  he's  here  under 
protest,  you  can  see  it  in  his  face,  and  the  chances  are  all 
in  favour  of  his  being  pleasantly  disappointed." 

Heriot's  quill  was  squeaking  as  he  spoke,  for  he  was  a 
man  with  the  faculty  of  doing  and  even  thinking  of  more 
than  one  thing  at  a  time;  but  though  his  sister  continued 
mounting  photographs  in  her  album  with  extreme  care, 
her  mind  was  full  of  the  two  young  boys  who  had  come 
that  night  to  live  under  their  roof  for  good  or  ill.  She 
wondered  whether  her  brother  was  right  in  his  ready 
estimate  of  their  respective  characters.  She  knew  him  for 
the  expert  that  he  was;  these  were  not  the  first  boys  that 
she  had  heard  him  sum  up  as  confidentiy  on  as  brief  an 
acquaintance;  and  though  her  knowledge  had  its  obvious 
limitations,  she  had  never  known  him  wrong.  He  had  a 
wonderfully  fair  mind.  And  yet  the  boy  of  action,  in 
whom  it  was  possible  to  stimulate  thought,  would  always 
be  nearer  his  heart  than  the  thoughtful  boy  who  might 
need  goading  into  physical  activity.  She  could  not  help 
feeling  that  he  was  prepared  to  take  an  unsympathetic 
view  of  the  boy  who  had  struck  her  as  having  more  in  him 
than  most  small  boys;  it  was  no  less  plain  that  his 
romantic  history  and  previous  disadvantages  had  already 
rendered  the  other  newcomer  an  object  of  sympathetic 
interest  in  the  house-master's  eyes.  The  material  was  new 
as  well  as  raw,  and  so  doubly  welcome  to  the  workman's 
hand.  Yet  the  workman's  sister,  who  had  so  much  of  his 
own  force  and  fairness  in  her  nature,  felt  that  she  could 


8  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

never  like  a  sulky  lout,  however  cruel  the  circumstances 
which  had  combined  to  make  him  one. 

She  felt  a  good  deal  more  before  the  last  print  was  in 
her  album;  in  the  first  place  that  she  would  see  really  very 
little  of  these  two  boys  until  in  years  to  come  they  rose 
to  the  Sixth  Form  table  over  which  she  presided  in  hall. 
Now  and  then  they  might  have  headaches  and  be  sent  in 
to  keep  quiet  and  look  at  the  Punches;  but  she  would  never 
be  at  all  in  touch  with  them  until  they  were  big  boys  at 
the  top  of  the  house;  and  then  they  would  be  shy  and 
exceedingly  correct,  of  few  words  but  not  too  few,  and  none 
too  much  enthusiasm,  like  all  the  other  big  boys.  And  that 
thought  drew  a  sigh. 

"What's  the  matter?"  came  in  an  instant  from  the 
other  bureau,  where  the  quill  had  ceased  to  squeak. 

"I  was  thinking  that,  after  all,  these  two  boys  have 
more  individuality  than  most  who  come  to  us." 

"  One  of  them  has." 

"Both,  I  think;  and  I  was  wondering  how  much  will 
be  left  to  either  when  we  run  them  out  of  the  mould  in 
five  years'  time!" 

Heriot  came  to  his  feet  like  an  exasperated  advocate. 

"I  know  where  you  get  that  from!"  he  cried  with  a 
kind  of  jovial  asperity.  "You've  been  reading  some  of 
these  trashy  articles  that  every  wiseacre  who  never  was  at 
a  public  school  thinks  he  can  write  about  them  now  I 
That's  one  of  their  stock  charges  against  us,  that  we  melt 
the  boys  down  and  run  them  all  out  of  the  same  mould 
like  bullets.  We  destroy  individuality;  we  do  nothing 
but  reduplicate  a  type  that  thinks  the  same  thoughts  and 
speaks  the  same  speech,  and  upholds  the  same  virtues  and 
condones  the  same  vices.  As  if  real  character  were  a 
soluble  thing!  As  if  it  altered  in  its  essence  from  the 
nursery  to  die  cemetery!    As  if  we  could  boil  away  a 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  9 

strong  will  or  an  artistic  temperament,  a  mean  soul  or  a 
saintly  spirit,  even  in  the  crucible  of  a  public  school!" 

His  breezy  confidence  was  almost  overwhelming; 
but  it  did  not  overwhelm  his  hearer,  or  sweep  her  with 
him  to  his  conclusion.  She  had  her  own  point  of  view; 
more,  she  had  her  own  coigne  of  observation.  Not  every 
boy  who  had  passed  through  the  house  in  her  time  was 
the  better  for  having  been  there.  She  had  seen  the  weak 
go  under — into  depths  she  could  not  plumb — and  the 
selfish  ride  serenely  on  the  crest  of  the  wave.  She  had 
seen  an  unpleasant  urchin  grow  into  a  more  and  more  dis- 
pleasing youth,  and  inferiority  go  forth  doubly  inferior 
for  the  misleading  stamp — that  precious  stamp — ^which 
one  and  all  acquired.  She  loved  the  life  as  she  saw  it, 
perforce  so  superficially;  it  was  a  life  that  appealed  pecu- 
liarly to  Miss  Heriot,  who  happened  to  have  her  own 
collegiate  experience,  an  excellent  degree  of  her  own,  and 
her  own  ideas  on  education.  But  from  the  boys  in  her 
brother's  house  she  held  necessarily  aloof;  and  in  her 
detachment  a  clear  and  independent  mind  lay  inevitably 
open  to  questionings,  misgivings,  intuitions,  for  which 
there  was  little  time  in  his  laborious  days. 

"But  you  admit  it  is  a  crucible,"  she  argued.  "And 
what's  a  crucible  but  a  melting-pot?" 

"A  melting-pot  for  characteristics,  but  not  for  char- 
acter!" he  cried.  "Take  the  two  boys  upstairs:  in  four 
or  five  years  one  will  have  more  to  say  for  himself,  I  hope, 
and  the  other  will  leave  more  unsaid;  but  the  self  that 
each  expresses  will  be  the  same  self,  even  though  we  have 
turned  a  first-rate  groom  into  a  second-rate  gentleman. 
'The  Child,'  remember,  and  not  the  school,  *is  father  of 
the  Man.'" 

"Then  the  school's  his  mother!"  declared  Miss  Heriot 
without  a  moment's  hesitation. 


10  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Heriot  gave  the  sudden  happy  laugh  which  his  house 
was  never  sorry  to  hear,  and  his  fonn  found  the  more 
infectious  for  its  comparative  rarity. 

"Does  she  deny  it,  Milly?  Doesn't  she  rub  it  into 
every  one  of  them  in  Latin  that  even  they  can  understand  ? 
Let's  only  hope  they'll  be  fathers  of  better  men  for  the 
help  of  this  particular  alma  mater!" 

The  house-master  knocked  out  his  pipe  into  a  wooden 
Kaffir  bowl,  the  gift  of  some  exiled  Old  Boy,  and  went  off 
to  bid  the  two  new  boys  good-night. 


CHAPTER  II 

CHANGE  AND   CHANCE 

Rdtter  had  been  put  in  the  small  dormitory  at  the  very 
top  of  the  house.  Instead  of  two  long  rows  of  cubicles  as 
in  the  other  dormitories,  in  one  of  which  he  had  left 
Carpenter  on  the  way  upstairs,  here  under  the  roof  was 
a  square  chamber  with  a  dormer  window  in  the  sloping 
side  and  a  cubicle  in  each  of  its  four  comers.  Cubicle  was 
not  the  school  word  for  them,  according  to  the  matron  who 
came  up  with  the  boys,  but  "partition,"  or  "tish"  for 
short.  They  were  about  five  feet  high,  contained  a  bed 
and  a  chair  apiece,  and  were  merely  curtained  at  the  foot. 
But  the  dormitory  door  opened  into  the  one  allotted  to 
Rutter;  it  was  large  enough  to  hold  a  double  wash-stand 
for  himself  and  his  next-door  neighbour;  and  perhaps  he 
was  not  the  first  occupant  whom  it  had  put  in  mind  of  a 
loose-box  among  stalls. 

He  noted  everything  with  an  eye  singularly  sardonic 
for  fourteen,  and  as  singularly  alive  to  detail.  The 
common  dressing-table  was  in  the  dormer  window.  The 
boy  had  a  grim  look  at  himself  in  the  glass.  It  was  not  a 
particularly  pleasant  face,  with  its  sombre  expression  and 
stubborn  mouth,  but  it  looked  brown  and  hard,  and  acute 
enough  in  its  dogged  way.  It  almost  smiled  at  itself  for 
the  fraction  of  a  second,  but  whether  in  resignation  or 
defiance,  or  with  a  pinch  of  involuntary  pride  in  his  new 

11 


12  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

state  of  life,  it  would  have  been  difficult  even  for  the  boy 
to  say.  Certainly  it  was  with  a  thrill  that  he  read  his  own 
name  over  his  partition,  and  then  the  other  boys*  names 
over  theirs.  Bingley  was  the  fellow  next  him.  Joyce 
and  Crabtree  were  the  other  two.  What  would  they  be 
like?  What  sort  of  faces  would  they  bring  back  to  the 
glass  in  the  dormer  window  ? 

Rutter  was  not  conscious  of  an  imagination,  but  some- 
how he  pictured  Joyce  large  and  lethargic,  Crabtree  a 
humorist,  and  Bingley  a  bully  of  the  Flashman  type. 
He  had  just  been  reading  Tom  Brown  by  advice.  He 
wondered  would  the  humorist  be  man  enough  to  join  him 
in  standing  up  to  the  brutes,  and  whether  pillow-fights 
were  still  the  fashion;  he  did  not  believe  they  were, 
because  Master  Evan  had  never  mentioned  them;  but 
then  Master  Evan  had  only  been  at  a  preparatory  school 
last  spring,  and  he  might  have  found  it  quite  otherwise  at 
Winchester.  The  new  boy  undressed  with  an  absent  mind. 
He  was  wondering  what  it  would  have  been  like  if  he  had 
been  sent  to  Winchester  himself,  and  there  encountered 
Master  Evan  on  equal  terms.  He  had  never  done  so  much 
wondering  in  his  life;  he  found  a  school  list  in  the 
dormitory,  and  took  it  to  bed  with  him,  and  lay  there 
doing  more. 

So  there  was  an  Upper  Sixth  and  a  Lower  Sixth,  and 
then  a  form  called  the  Remove;  and  in  the  Remove,  by 
the  way,  was  friend  Joyce  of  the  comer  opposite.  Then 
came  the  Fifths — three  of  them — ^with  Crabtree  top  of  the 
Lower  Fifth.  Clever  fellow,  then,  Crabtree!  The  bully 
Bingley  was  no  doubt  notoriously  low  in  the  school.  The 
Middle  Remove  came  next,  and  through  each  column  of 
strange  names  the  boy  read  religiously,  with  a  fascination 
he  could  not  have  explained,  here  and  there  conjuring  an 
incongruous  figure  from  some  name  he  knew.     He  had 


CHANGE  AND   CHANCE  13 

got  down  to  the  Middle  Fourth  when  suddenly  his  breath 
was  taken  as  by  a  blow. 

Heriot  came  in  to  find  a  face  paler  than  it  had 
looked  downstairs,  but  a  good  brown  arm  and  hand  lying 
out  over  the  coverlet,  and  a  Midsummer  List  tightly 
clutched.  The  muscles  of  the  arm  were  unusually 
developed  for  so  young  a  boy.  Heriot  saw  them  relax 
under  his  gaze  as  he  stood  over  the  bed. 

"  Got  hold  of  a  school  list,  have  you  ?  " 

"Yessir,"  said  Rutter  with  a  slurring  alacrity  that 
certainly  did  not  savour  of  the  schoolroom.  Heriot 
turned  away  before  he  could  wince;  but  unluckily  his 
eyes  fell  on  the  floor,  strewn  with  the  litter  of  the  new 
boy's  clothes. 

"  I  like  the  way  you  fold  your  clothes ! "  he  laughed. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,  but  where  am  I  to  put 
them?'* 

It  was  refreshingly  polite;  but,  again,  the  begging- 
pardon  opening  was  not  the  politeness  of  a  schoolboy. 

"On  this  chair,'*  said  Heriot,  suiting  the  action  to 
the  word.  The  boy  would  have  leapt  out  of  bed  to 
do  it  himself.  His  shyness  not  only  prevented  him,  but 
rendered  him  incapable  of  protest  or  acknowledgement; 
and  the  next  moment  he  had  something  to  be  shy  about. 
Mr.  Heriot  was  holding  up  a  broad  and  dirty  belt, 
and  without  thinking  he  had  cried,  "What's  this?" 

Rutter  could  not  answer  for  shame.  And  Heriot  had 
time  to  think. 

"  I  can  sympathise,"  he  said  with  a  chuckle;  "  in  the 
holidays  I  often  wear  one  myself.  But  we  mustn't  betray 
each  other,  Rutter,  or  we  shall  never  hear  the  last  of  it! 
I'll  give  you  an  order  for  a  pair  of  braces  in  the  morning." 

"I  have  them,  sir,  thanks." 

"That's  right."    Heriot  was  still  handling  the  belt  as 


14  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

though  he  really  longed  to  buckle  it  about  himself. 
Suddenly  he  noticed  the  initials,  "J.  R." 

"I  thought  your  name  was  Ian,  Rutter?" 

"So  it  is,  sir;  but  they  used  to  call  me  Jan." 

Heriot  waited  for  a  sigh,  but  the  mouth  that  appealed 
to  him  was  characteristically  compressed.  He  sat  a  few 
moments  on  the  foot  of  the  bed.  "  Well,  good-night,  and 
a  fair  start  to  you,  Jan  I  The  matron  will  put  out  the 
gas  at  ten." 

The  lad  mumbled  something;  the  man  looked  back  to 
nod,  and  saw  him  lying  as  he  had  found  him,  still  clutch- 
ing the  list,  only  with  his  face  as  deep  a  colour  as  his 
arm. 

"Have  you  come  across  any  names  you  know?" 

"One." 

"Who's  that?" 

"He  won't  know  me." 

They  were  the  sullen  answers  that  had  made  a  bad 
impression  downstairs;  but  they  were  strangely  uttered, 
and  Rutter  no  longer  lay  still. 

"He  must  have  a  name,"  said  Heriot,  coming  back 
into  the  room. 

No  answer. 

"I'm  sorry  you're  ashamed  of  your  friend,"  said 
Heriot,  laughing. 

"He's  not  my  friend,  and " 

"  I  think  that's  very  likely,"  put  in  Heriot,  as  the  boy 
shut  his  lips  once  more.  "What's  in  a  name?  The 
chances  are  that  it's  only  a  namesake  after  all." 

He  turned  away  without  a  sign  of  annoyance  or  of 
further  interest  in  the  matter.  But  another  mumble 
from  the  bed  intercepted  him  at  the  door. 

"  Name  of  Devereux,"  he  made  out. 

"Devereux,  eh?" 


CHANGE  AND  CHANCE  15 

"Do  you  know  him,  sir?" 

"I  should  think  I  do!" 

"He'll  not  be  in  this  house?" 

Rutter  was  holding  his  breath, 

"No,  but  he  got  my  prize  last  term." 

"Do  you  know  his  other  name?" 

It  was  a  tremulous  mumble  now. 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't.  Wait  a  bit!  His  initials  are 
either  E.  P.  or  P.  E.     He  only  came  last  term." 

"He  only  would.  But  I  thought  he  was  going  to 
Winchester!" 

"  That's  the  fellow;  he  got  a  scholarship  and  came  here 
instead,  at  the  last  moment." 

The  new  boy  in  the  top  dormitory  made  no  remark 
when  the  matron  put  out  the  gas.  He  was  lying  on  his 
back  with  his  eyes  wide  open,  and  his  lips  compressed  out 
of  sight,  just  as  Heriot  had  left  him.  It  was  almost  a 
comfort  to  him  to  know  the  worst  for  certain;  and  now 
that  he  did  know  it,  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt,  he 
was  beginning  to  wonder  whether  it  need  necessarily  be 
the  worst  after  all.  It  might  easily  prove  the  best.  He 
had  always  liked  Master  Evan ;  that  was  as  much  as  this 
boy  would  admit  even  in  his  heart.  The  fact  would  have 
borne  a  warmer  recognition.  Best  or  worst,  however, he 
knew  it  as  well  as  though  Evan  Devereux  had  already 
come  back  with  the  rest  of  the  school,  and  either  cut  him 
dead  or  grasped  his  hand.  The  one  thing  not  to  be 
suspected  for  an  instant  was  that  the  lean  oldish  man, 
with  the  kind  word  and  the  abrupt  manner,  could 
possibly  know  the  secret  of  a  new  boy's  heart,  and  have 
entered  already  into  his  hopes  and  fears. 

It  was  very  quiet  in  the  top  dormitory.  Rutter 
wondered  what  it  would  be  like  when  all  the  boys  came 
back.     Carpenter's  dormitory  was  downstairs,  but  they 


16  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

were  all  within  earshot  of  each  other.  He  wondered 
what  it  would  have  been  like  if  Master  Evan  had  been 
in  that  house,  in  that  little  dormitory,  in  the  partition 
next  his  own.  Master  Evan !  Yet  he  had  never  thought 
of  him  as  anything  else,  much  less  addressed  him  by  any 
other  name.  What  if  it  slipped  out  at  school!  It  easily 
might;  indeed,  far  more  easily  and  naturally  than 
"  Devereux."  That  would  sound  very  like  profanity,  in 
his  ears,  and  on  his  lips. 

The  new  boy  grinned  involuntarily  in  the  dark.  It 
was  all  too  absurd.  He  had  enjoyed  ample  opportunity 
of  picking  up  the  phraseology  of  the  class  to  which  he 
had  been  lately  elevated:  "too  absurd"  would  certainly 
have  been  their  expression  for  the  situation  in  which  he 
found  himself.  He  tried  to  see  it  from  that  point  of  view. 
He  was  not  without  a  wry  humour  of  his  own.  He  must 
take  care  not  to  magnify  a  matter  which  nobody  else 
might  think  twice  about.  A  public  school  was  a 
little  world,  in  which  two  boys  in  different  houses,  even 
two  of  an  age,  might  seldom  or  never  meet;  days  might 
elapse  before  Evan  as  much  as  recognised  him  in  the 
throng.  But  then  he  might  refuse  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  him.  But  then — but  then — he  might  tell  the 
whole  school  why  I 

"He  was  our  coachman's  son  at  home!'* 
The  coachman's  son  heard  the  incredible  statement  as 
though  it  had  been  shouted  in  his  ear.  He  felt  a  thousand 
eyes  on  his  devoted  face.  He  knew  that  he  lay  blushing 
in  the  dark.  It  took  all  his  will  to  calm  him  by 
degrees. 

"If  he  does,"  he  decided,  "I'm  off.    That's  all." 
But  why  should  he  ?     Why  should  a  young  gentleman 
betray  a  poor  boy's  secret?     Rutter  was  the  stable-boy 
again  in  spirit;  he  might  have  been  back  in  his  trucklebed 


CHANGE  AND  CHANCE  17 

in  the  coachman's  cottage  at  Mr.  Devereux's.  The  transi- 
tion of  standpoint  at  any  rate  was  complete.  He  had 
always  liked  Master  Evan;  they  had  been  very  good 
friends  all  their  lives.  Incidents  of  the  friendship  came 
back  in  shoals.  Evan  had  been  the  youngest  of  a  large 
family,  and  that  after  a  gap;  in  one  sense  he  had  been 
literally  the  only  child.  Often  he  had  needed  a  boy  to 
play  with  him,  and  not  seldom  Jan  Rutter  had  been 
scrubbed  and  brushed  and  oiled  to  the  scalp  in  order  to 
fill  the  proud  position  of  that  boy.  He  must  have  known 
how  to  behave  himself  as  a  little  kid,  though  he 
remembered  as  he  grew  older  that  the  admonition  with 
which  he  was  always  dispatched  from  the  stables  used  to 
make  it  more  difficult;  there  were  so  many  things  to 
"think  on"  not  to  do,  and  somehow  it  was  harder  not  to 
do  them  when  you  had  always  to  keep  "thinking  on." 
Still,  he  distinctly  remembered  hearing  complimentary 
remarks  passed  upon  him  by  the  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
together  with  whispered  explanations  of  his  manners.  It 
was  as  easy  to  supply  as  to  understand  those  explanations 
now;  but  it  was  sad  to  feel  that  the  manners  had  long 
ago  been  lost. 

And,  boy  as  he  was,  and  dimly  as  may  be,  he  did  feel 
this:  that  in  the  beginning  there  had  been  very  little  to 
choose  between  Evan  and  himself,  but  that  afterwards  the 
gulf  had  been  at  one  time  very  wide.  He  could  recall 
with  shame  a  phase  in  which  Master  Evan  had  been 
forbidden,  and  not  without  reason,  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  Jan  Rutter.  There  was  even  a  cruel  thrashing  which 
he  had  received  for  language  learnt  from  the  executioner's 
own  lips;  and  it  was  characteristic  of  Jan  that  he  had 
never  quite  forgiven  his  father  for  that,  though  he  was 
dead,  and  had  been  a  kind  father  on  the  whole.  Later, 
the  boy  about  the  stables  had  acquired  more  sense;   the 


18  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

eccentric  vicar  had  taken  him  in  hand,  and  spoken  up  for 
him;  and  nothing  was  said  if  he  bowled  to  Master  Evan 
after  his  tea,  or  played  a  makeshift  kind  of  racquets  with 
him  in  the  stable-yard,  so  long  as  he  kept  his  tongue  and 
his  harness  clean.  So  the  gulf  had  narrowed  again  of  late 
years;  but  it  had  never  again  been  shallow. 

It  was  spanned,  however,  by  quite  a  network  of 
mutual  oflSces.  In  the  beginning  Evan  used  to  take  all 
his  broken  toys  to  Jan,  who  was  a  fine  hand  at  rigging 
ships  and  soldering  headless  horsemen.  Jan's  reward  was 
the  reversion  of  anything  broken  beyond  repair,  or  other- 
wise without  further  value  to  its  original  owner.  Jan  was 
also  an  adept  at  roasting  chestnuts  and  potatoes  on  the 
potting-shed  fire,  a  daring  manipulator  of  molten  lead, 
a  comic  artist  with  a  piece  of  putty,  and  the  pioneer  of 
smoking  in  the  loft.  Those  were  the  days  when  Evan 
was  suddenly  forbidden  the  back  premises,  and  Jan  set 
definitely  to  work  in  the  stables  when  he  was  not  at  the 
village  school.  Years  elapsed  before  the  cricket  stage 
that  drew  the  children  together  again  as  biggish  boys;  in 
the  interim  Jan  had  imbibed  wisdom  of  more  kinds  than 
one.  On  discovering  himself  to  be  a  rude  natural  left- 
hand  bowler,  who  could  spoil  the  afternoon  at  any  mo- 
ment by  the  premature  dismissal  of  his  opponent,  he  was 
sagacious  enough  to  lose  the  art  at  times  in  the  most 
sudden  and  mysterious  manner,  and  only  to  recover  it  by 
fits  and  starts  when  Evan  had  made  all  the  runs  he 
wanted.  And  as  Jan  had  but  little  idea  of  batting,  there 
was  seldom  any  bad  blood  over  the  game.  But  in  all 
their  relations  Jan  took  care  of  that,  for  he  had  developed 
a  real  devotion  to  Evan,  who  could  be  perfectly  delightful 
to  one  companion  at  a  time,  when  everything  was  going 
well. 

And  then  things  had  happened  so  thick  and  fast  that 


CHANGE  AND  CHANCE  19 

it  was  diflScult  to  recall  them  in  their  chronological  order; 
but  the  salient  points  were  that  Rutter  the  elde;-,  that  fine 
figure  on  a  box,  with  his  bushy  whiskers  and  his  bold 
black  eyes,  had  suddenly  succumbed  to  pneumonia  after  a 
bout  of  night-work  in  the  month  of  February,  and  that 
the  son  of  an  ironmaster's  coachman  by  a  northern  town 
awoke  to  find  himself  the  grandson  of  an  East  Anglian 
clergyman  whose  ancient  name  he  had  never  heard  before, 
but  who  sent  for  the  lad  in  hot  haste,  to  make  a  gentle- 
man of  him  if  it  was  not  too  late. 

The  change  from  the  raw  red  outworks  of  an  exces- 
sively modem  and  utilitarian  town,  to  the  most  venerable 
of  English  rectories,  in  a  countryside  which  has  scarcely 
altered  since  the  Conquest,  was  not  appreciated  as  it 
might  have  been  by  Jan  Rutter.  He  had  nothing  against 
the  fussy  architecture  and  the  highly  artificial  garden  of 
his  late  environment;  on  the  contrary,  he  heartily 
preferred  those  familiar  immaturities  to  the  general  air  of 
complacent  antiquity  which  pervaded  his  new  home. 
That  was  the  novelty  to  Jan,  and  there  was  a  prejudice 
against  it  in  his  veins.  It  was  the  very  atmosphere  which 
had  driven  his  mother  before  him  to  desperation.  Her 
blood  in  him  rebelled  again;  nor  did  he  feel  the  effect  the 
less  because  he  was  too  young  to  trace  the  cause.  He 
only  knew  that  he  had  been  happier  in  a  saddle-room  that 
still  smelt  of  varnish  than  he  was  ever  likely  to  be  under 
mellow  tiles  and  mediaeval  trees.  The  tutor  and  the 
strenuous  training  for  a  public  school  came  to  some 
extent  as  a  relief;  but  the  queer  lad  took  quite  a  pride  in 
showing  no  pride  at  all  in  his  altered  conditions  and 
prospects.  The  new  school  and  the  new  home  were  all 
one  to  him.  He  had  not  been  consulted  about  either.  He 
recognised  an  authority  which  he  was  powerless  to  resist, 
but  there  the  recognition  ended.    There  could  be  no 


20  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

question  of  gratitude  for  oflBces  performed  out  of  a  cold 
sense  of  duty,  by  beings  of  his  own  blood  who  never  so 
much  as  mentioned  his  father's  death,  or  even  breathed 
his  mother's  name.  There  was  a  tincture  of  their  own 
pride  even  in  him. 

He  had  heard  of  public  schools  from  Evan,  and  even 
envied  that  gilded  child  his  coming  time  at  one;  but, 
when  his  own  time  came  so  unexpectedly,  Jan  had 
hardened  his  heart,  and  faced  the  inevitable  as  callously 
as  any  criminal.  And  then  at  its  hardest  his  heart  had 
melted  within  him:  an  arbitrary  and  unkind  fate  held 
out  the  hope  of  amends  by  restoring  to  his  ken  the  one 
creature  he  really  wished  to  see  again.  It  was  true  that 
Jan  had  heard  nothing  of  Evan  since  the  end  of  the 
Christmas  holidays;  but  then  the  boys  had  never 
exchanged  a  written  word  in  their  lives.  And  the  more 
he  thought  of  it,  the  less  Jan  feared  the  worst  that  might 
accrue  from  their  meeting  on  the  morrow  or  the  day  after. 
Not  that  he  counted  on  the  best:  not  that  his  young 
blood  had  warmed  incontinently  to  the  prospect  which 
had  chilled  it  hitherto.  Master  Evan  as  an  equal  was 
still  an  inconceivable  figure;  and  the  whole  prospect 
remained  grey  and  grim;  but  at  least  there  was  a  glint  of 
excitement  in  it  now,  a  vision  of  depths  and  heights. 

So  the  night  passed,  his  first  at  a  public  school.  The 
only  sounds  were  those  that  marked  its  passage:  the 
muffled  ticking  of  his  one  treasure,  the  little  watch  under 
his  pillow,  and  the  harsh  chimes  of  an  outside  clock  which 
happened  to  have  struck  ten  as  he  opened  the  Midsummer 
List.  It  had  since  struck  eleven;  he  even  heard  it 
strike  twelve.  But  life  was  more  exciting,  when  he  fell 
asleep  soon  after  midnight,  than  Jan  Rutter  had  dreamt 
of  finding  it  when  he  went  to  bed. 


CHAPTER  III 

VERY  RAW  MATERIAL 

It  was  all  but  a  summer  morning  when  Jan  got  back 
into  the  trousers  without  pockets  and  the  black  jacket 
and  tie  ordained  by  the  school  authorities.  Peculiarly 
oppressive  to  Jan  was  the  rule  about  trouser  pockets; 
those  in  his  jacket  were  so  full  in  consequence  that  there 
was  barely  room  for  his  incriminating  belt,  which  he 
rolled  up  as  small  as  it  would  go,  and  made  into  a  parcel 
to  be  hidden  away  in  his  study  when  he  had  one.  This 
was  his  last  act  before  leaving  the  dormitory  and 
marching  downstairs  at  an  hour  when  most  of  the  house- 
hold were  presumably  still  in  bed  and  asleep;  but  Jan  was 
naturally  an  early  riser,  and  he  had  none  of  the  scruples 
of  conventionality  on  the  score  of  an  essentially  harmless 
act.  He  was  curious  to  see  something  of  his  new 
surroundings,  and  there  was  nothing  like  seeing  for 
oneself. 

At  the  foot  of  the  lead-lined  stairs,  worn  bright  as 
silver  at  the  edges,  there  was  a  short  tiled  passage  with 
a  green  baize  door  at  one  end  and  what  was  evidently  the 
boys'  hall  at  the  other.  The  baize  door  communicated 
with  the  master's  side  of  the  house,  for  the  new  boys  had 
come  through  it  on  their  way  up  to  dormitory.  The  hall 
was  a  good  size,  with  one  very  long  table  under  the  win- 
dows and  two  shorter  ones  on  either  side  of  the  fireplace. 

21 


22  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

On  the  walls  hung  portraits  of  the  great  composers, 
which  Jan  afterwards  found  to  be  house  prizes  in  part- 
singing  competitions  discontinued  before  his  time;  at  the 
moment,  however,  he  took  no  kind  of  interest  in  them, 
and  but  very  little  in  the  two  challenge  cups  under  the 
clock.  What  did  attract  him  was  the  line  of  open 
windows,  looking  like  solid  blocks  of  sunlight  and  fresh 
air.  On  the  sill  of  one  a  figure  in  print  was  busy  with 
her  wash-leather,  and  she  accosted  Jan  cheerily. 

"You  are  down  early,  sir!" 

"I  always  am,"  remarked  Jan,  looking  for  a  door  into 
the  open  air. 

"You're  not  like  most  of  the  gentlemen,  then,"  the 
maid  returned,  in  her  cheerful  Cockney  voice.  "They 
leaves  it  to  the  last  moment,  and  then  they  *as  to  fly. 
You  should  'ear  'em  come  down  them  stairs!" 

"Is  there  no  way  out?"  inquired  Jan. 

"You  mean  into  the  quad?" 

"That's  the  quad,  is  it?    Then  I  do." 

"Well,  there's  the  door,  just  outside  this  door;  but 
Morgan,  'e  keeps  the  key  o'  that,  and  I  don't  think  'e's 
come  yet." 

"Then  I'm  going  through  that  window,"  announced 
the  new  boy,  calmly;  and  carried  out  his  intention  with- 
out a  moment's  hesitation. 

Had  his  object  been  to  run  away  on  his  very  first 
morning,  before  his  house-master  was  astir,  as  the  maid 
seemed  to  fear  by  the  way  she  leant  out  of  her  window  to 
watch  him,  the  next  step  would  have  taxed  all  Jan's 
resources. 

Heriot's  quad  was  a  gravel  plot  very  distinctively 
enclosed,  on  the  left  by  the  walls  of  buildings  otherwise 
unconnected  with  the  house,  on  the  right  by  the  boys* 
studies.    At  the  further  extremity  were  twin  gables  over 


VERY  RAW  MATERIAL  23 

gothic  arches  which  left  the  two  interiors  underneath  open 
at  one  end  to  all  the  elements;  never  in  his  life  had  Jan 
beheld  such  structures;  but  he  had  picked  up  enough 
from  his  tutor  to  guess  that  they  were  fives-courts,  and 
he  went  up  to  have  a  look  into  them.  To  the  right  of  the 
fives-courts  was  an  alley  ending  at  a  formidable  spiked 
gate  which  was  yet  the  only  obvious  way  of  escape,  had 
Jan  been  minded  to  make  his.  But  nothing  was  further 
from  his  thoughts;  indeed,  there  was  a  certain  dull  gleam 
in  his  eyes,  and  a  sallow  flush  upon  his  face,  which  had 
not  been  there  the  previous  evening.  At  all  events  he 
looked  wider  awake. 

The  studies  interested  him  most.  There  was  a  double 
row  of  little  lattice  windows,  piercing  a  very  wall  of  ivy, 
like  port-holes  in  a  vessel's  side.  Not  only  were  the 
little  windows  deep-set  in  ivy,  but  each  had  its  little 
window-box,  and  in  some  of  these  still  drooped  the 
withered  remnant  of  a  brave  display.  Jan  was  not 
interested  in  flowers,  or  for  that  matter  in  anything  that 
made  for  the  mere  beauty  of  life;  but  he  peered  with  in- 
terest into  one  or  two  of  the  ground-floor  studies.  There 
was  little  to  be  seen  beyond  his  own  reflection  broken  to 
bits  in  the  diamond  panes.  Between  him  and  the  windows 
was  a  border  of  shrubs,  behind  iron  palings  bent  by  the 
bodies  and  feet  of  generations,  and  painted  green  like  the 
garden  seats  under  the  alien  walls  opposite.  On  the  whole, 
and  in  the  misty  sunlight  of  the  fine  September  morning, 
Jan  liked  Heriot's  quad. 

"You're  up  early,  sir  I" 

It  was  not  the  maid  this  time,  but  a  bearded  man- 
servant whom  the  boy  had  seen  the  previous  night.  Jan 
made  the  same  reply  as  before,  and  no  sort  of  secret  of 
the  way  in  which  he  had  got  out  into  the  quad.  He 
added  that  he  should  like  to  have  a  look  at  the  studies; 


24  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

and  Morgan,  with  a  stare  and  a  smile  quite  lost  on  Jan, 
showed  him  round. 

They  were  absurdly,  deliciously,  inconceivably  tiny, 
the  studies  at  Heriot's;  each  was  considerably  smaller  than 
a  dormitory  "  tish,"  and  the  saddle-room  of  Jan*s  old  days 
would  have  made  three  or  four  of  them.  But  they  were 
undeniably  cosy  and  attractive,  as  compact  as  a  captain's 
cabin,  as  private  as  friar's  cell,  and  far  more  comfortable 
than  either.  Or  so  they  might  well  have  seemed  to  the 
normal  boy  about  to  possess  a  study  of  his  own,  with  a  table 
and  two  chairs,  a  square  of  carpet  as  big  as  a  bath-sheet,  a 
book-shelf  and  pictures,  and  photographs  and  ornaments 
to  taste,  fretwork  and  plush  to  heart's  content,  a  flower- 
box  for  the  summer  term,  hot-water  pipes  for  the  other 
two,  and  above  all  a  door  of  his  own  to  shut  at  will 
against  the  world!  But  Jan  Rutter  had  not  the  instincts 
of  a  normal  schoolboy,  nor  the  temperament  favourable  to 
their  rapid  growth.  He  had  been  brought  up  too  uncom- 
fortably to  know  the  value  of  comfort,  and  too  much  in 
the  open  air  to  appreciate  the  merits  of  indoor  sanctuary. 
Artistic  impulse  he  had  none;  and  the  rudimentary  signs 
of  that  form  of  grace,  to  be  seen  in  nearly  all  the  studies 
he  was  shown,  left  him  thoroughly  unimpressed. 

"Is  it  true,"  he  asked,  "that  every  boy  in  the  school 
has  one  of  these  holes?" 

"Quite  true,"  replied  Morgan,  staring.  "You  didn't 
say  'holes,*  sir?" 

"  I  did,"  declared  Jan,  enjoying  his  accidental  hit. 

"  You'd  better  not  let  Mr.  Heriot  hear  you,  sir,  or  any 
of  the  gentlemen  either  I'* 

"I  don't  care  who  hears  me,"  retorted  Jan,  boastfully; 
but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  he  had  come  to  school 
against  his  will,  and  that  this  was  his  first  opportunity  of 
airing  a  not  unnatural  antagonism. 


VERY  RAW  MATERIAL  25 

"You  wait  till  you've  got  one  of  your  own,"  said  the 
well-meaning  man,  "with  a  nice  new  carpet  and  table- 
cloth, and  your  own  family  portraits  and  sportin* 
picters!" 

"At  any  rate  I  should  know  a  horse  from  a  cow," 
returned  Jan,  ejfamining  something  in  the  nature  of  a 
sporting  print,  "and  not  hang  up  rot  like  that!" 

"  You  let  Mr.  Shockley  hear  you ! "  cried  Morgan,  with 
a  laugh.    "  You'll  catch  it!  '* 

"  I've  no  doubt  I  shall  do  that,"  said  Jan,  grimly.  He 
followed  Morgan  into  an  empty  study,  and  asked  if  it  was 
likely  to  be  his. 

"  Not  unless  you  take  a  pretty  high  place  in  the  school. 
It's  only  the  top  dozen  in  the  house  that  get  these  front 
studies  upstairs.  You  can  make  up  your  mind  to  one  at 
the  back,  and  be  glad  if  it's  not  downstairs,  where  every- 
body can  see  in  and  throw  in  stones." 

Jan  felt  he  had  not  made  a  friend  of  Morgan;  and  yet 
in  his  heart  he  was  more  favourably  impressed  with  what 
he  had  seen  than  his  peculiar  temperament  permitted  him 
to  show.  Little  as  their  adventitious  attractions  might 
appeal  to  him,  there  was  something  attractive  to  Jan 
about  this  system  of  separate  studies.  It  appealed,  and 
not  without  design,  to  that  spirit  of  independence  which 
happened  to  be  one  of  his  stronger  points.  Moreover  he 
could  conceive  a  very  happy  intimacy  between  two  real 
friends  in  one  of  these  little  dens;  and  altogether  he 
brought  a  brighter  face  to  the  breakfast-table  than  he  had 
shown  for  an  instant  overnight.  Heriot  glanced  at  it 
with  an  interested  twinkle,  as  though  he  had  been  at  the 
explorer's  elbow  all  the  morning;  but  whatever  he  might 
have  known,  he  betrayed  his  knowledge  neither  by  word 
nor  sign. 

After  breakfast  the  two  boys  sallied  forth  with  orders 


26  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

signed  by  Heriot  for  a  school  cap  apiece;  and  saw  the  long 
old-fashioned  country  street  for  the  first  time  in  broad 
daylight.  It  gave  the  impression  of  a  street  with  nothing 
behind  it  on  either  side,  the  chance  remnant  of  a  vanished 
town.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  solid  than  the 
fronts  of  the  drab  stone  houses,  and  nothing  more  startiing 
than  the  glimpses  of  vivid  meadowland  like  a  black-cloth 
close  behind.  The  caps  were  procured  from  the  cricket 
professional,  a  maker  of  history  whose  fame  provided 
Carpenter  with  a  congenial  topic  on  the  way,  but  sat  sadly 
on  the  failing  giant  who  was  there  to  serve  them  in  the 
little  shop.  The  caps  were  black  but  not  comely,  as 
Carpenter  more  than  once  remarked;  they  were  a  cross 
between  a  cricket-cap  and  that  of  a  naval  officer,  with  the 
school  badge  in  red  above  the  peak.  Jan  chose  the 
biggest  he  could  find,  and  crammed  it  over  his  skull  as 
though  he  was  going  out  to  exercise  a  horse. 

The  day  was  fully  occupied  with  the  rather  exhaustive 
examination  designed  to  put  the  right  boy  in  the  right 
form.  There  were  no  fewer  than  three  papers  in  the 
morning  alone.  There  was,  however,  a  short  break  between 
each,  which  Carpenter  was  inclined  to  spend  in  boring 
Rutter  with  appreciative  comments  upon  the  striking 
mural  decorations  of  the  great  schoolroom  in  which  the 
examination  was  held.  There  were  forty-two  new  boys, 
some  of  them  hulking  fellows  of  fifteen  or  more,  some 
quite  small  boys  in  Eton  jackets;  and  the  chances  are 
that  none  among  them  was  more  impressed  than  Carpenter 
by  the  reproductions  of  classical  statuary  hung  upon  the 
walls  of  Pompeian  red,  or  by  the  frieze  of  ancient  and 
modem  authors  which  a  great  mind  had  planned  and  a 
cunning  hand  had  made;  but  it  is  certain  that  none 
thought  less  of  them  than  Jan  Rutter.  To  pacify  his  com- 
panion he  did  have  a  look  at  the  frieze,  but  it  was  exactly 


VERY  RAW  MATERIAL  27 

the  same  look  as  he  had  cast  into  the  studies  before  break- 
Cast.  The  two  had  more  in  common  when  they  com- 
pared notes  on  the  various  papers. 

"  I  didn't  mind  the  Latin  grammar  and  history,"  said 
Jan.  "  I've  had  my  nose  in  my  grammar  for  the  last  six 
months,  and  you  only  had  to  answer  half  the  history  ques- 
tions." 

Jan's  spirits  seemed  quite  high. 

"  But  what  about  the  unseen  ?  "  asked  Carpenter. 

"I  happened  to  have  done  the  hardest  bit  before," 
said  Jan,  chuckling  consumedly;  "and  not  so  long  since, 
either!" 

Carpenter  looked  at  him. 

*'  Then  it  wasn't  unseen  at  all  ?  " 

"Not  to  me." 

"You  didn't  think  of  saying  so  on  your  paper?" 

"Not  I!    It's  their  look-out,  not  mine,"  chuckled  Jan. 

The  other  made  no  comment.  It  was  the  long  break 
in  the  middle  of  the  day,  and  the  pair  were  on  their  way 
back  to  Heriot's  for  dinner. 

"I  wish  they'd  set  us  some  verses,"  said  Carpenter. 
"They'd  be  my  best  chance." 

"Then  you're  a  fool  if  you  take  it,"  put  in  a  good- 
humoured  lout  who  had  joined  them  in  the  street. 

"  But  it's  the  only  thing  I  can  do  at  all  decently,"  ex- 
plained the  ingenuous  Carpenter.  "  I'm  a  backward  sort 
of  ass  at  most  things,  but  I  rather  like  Latin  verses." 

"Well,  you're  another  sort  of  ass  if  you  do  your  best 
in  any  of  these  piffling  papers." 

"I  seel  You  mean  to  make  sure  of  a  nice  easy 
form?" 

"Ratherl" 

"There's  no  fagging  over  the  Upper  Fourth,  let  me  tell 
you,  even  for  us." 


28  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"  Perhaps  not,  but  there's  more  kinds  of  facing  than 
one,  you  take  my  word  for  it;  and  I  prefer  to  do  mine 
out  of  school,"  said  the  big  new  boy,  significantly,  as  their 
ways  parted. 

Carpenter  wanted  to  discuss  his  meaning,  but  Jan  took 
no  interest  in  it,  and  was  evidently  not  to  be  led  into  any 
discussion  against  his  will.  He  had  in  fact  a  gift  of 
silence  remarkable  in  a  boy  and  not  a  little  irritating  to  a 
companion.  Yet  he  broke  it  again  to  the  extent  of  asking 
Heriot  at  table,  and  that  a  propos  of  nothing,  when  the 
other  boys  would  "  start  to  arrive." 

"The  tap  will  be  turned  on  any  minute  now,"  said 
Heriot,  with  a  look  at  his  sister.  "In  some  houses  I 
expect  it's  running  already." 

"Which  house  is  Devereux  in?"  asked  Rutter,  always 
direct  when  he  spoke  at  all. 

"Let  me  think.  I  know — the  Lodge — the  house 
opposite  the  chapel  with  the  study  doors  opening  into 
the  quad." 

Carpenter's  silence  was  the  companion  feature  of  this 
meal. 

The  boys  had  time  for  a  short  walk  afterwards,  and 
more  than  a  hint  to  take  one.  But  they  only  went 
together  because  they  were  thrown  together;  these  two 
had  obviously  as  little  else  in  common  as  boys  could  have; 
and  yet,  there  was  something  else,  and  neither  dreamt 
what  a  bond  it  was  to  be. 

"Do  you  know  Devereux?"  Carpenter  began  before 
they  were  out  of  their  quad. 

"Why?    Do  you  know  him?" 

Jan  was  not  unduly  taken  aback;  he  was  prepared 
for  anything  with  regard  to  Devereux,  including  the  next 
question  long  before  it  came. 

"We  were  at  the  same  preparatory  school,  and  great 


VERY  RAW  MATERIAL  29 

pals  there,"  replied  Carpenter,  wistfully.  "  I  suppose  you 
know  him  at  home?" 

"  I  used  to,  but  only  in  a  sort  of  way,"  said  Jan,  warily. 
"  I  don't  suppose  we  shall  see  anything  of  each  other  here; 
he  mayn't  even  recognise  me,  to  start  with." 

"Or  me,  for  that  matter!"  cried  Carpenter,  with  less 
reserve.  "  He's  never  written  to  me  since  we  left,  though 
I  wrote  to  him  twice  last  term,  and  once  in  the  holidays 
to  ask  him  something." 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  Jan's  tongue  to  defend  the  absent 
Evan  with  injudicious  warmth;  but  he  remembered  what 
he  had  just  said,  and  held  his  tongue  as  he  always  could. 
Carpenter,  on  the  other  hand,  apparently  regretting  his 
little  show  of  pique,  changed  the  subject  with  ingenuous 
haste  and  chattered  more  freely  than  ever  about  the  various 
school  buildings  that  they  passed  upon  their  way.  There 
was  a  house  at  the  end  of  the  street  with  no  fewer  than 
three  tiers  of  ivy-covered  study  windows;  but  it  had  nj 
quad.  There  were  other  houses  tucked  more  out  of  sight; 
but  Carpenter  knew  about  them,  and  which  hero  of  the 
Cambridge  eleven  had  been  at  this,  that,  or  the  other. 
His  interest  in  his  school  was  of  the  romantic  and  imagina- 
tive order;  it  contrasted  very  favourably  with  Jan's 
indifference,  which  grew  the  more  perversely  pronounced 
as  his  companion  waxed  enthusiastic.  It  appeared  that 
Carpenter  was  following  a  number  of  youths  from  his 
part  of  the  world,  who  had  been  through  the  school  before 
him,  and  from  whom  he  had  acquired  a  smattering  of  its 
lore.  The  best  houses  of  all,  he  had  heard,  were  not  in 
the  town  at  all,  but  on  the  hill  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away. 
The  pair  went  to  inspect,  and  found  regular  mansions 
standing  back  in  their  own  grounds,  their  studies  and 
fives-courts  hidden  from  the  road;  for  the  new  boys 
trespassed  far  enough  to  see  for  themselves;  and  Rutter 


30  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

at  once  expressed  a  laconic  preference  for  the  hill  houses, 
whereat  Carpenter  stood  up  as  readily  for  the  town. 

"There's  no  end  of  rivalry  between  the  two,"  he 
explained,  as  they  trotted  down  into  the  valley,  pressed 
for  time.  "  I  wouldn't  be  in  a  hill  house  for  any  money, 
or  in  any  house  but  ours  if  I  had  my  choice  of  all 
the  lot." 

"  And  I  wouldn't  be  here  at  all,"  retorted  Jan,  depriving 
his  companion  of  what  breath  he  had  as  they  hurried  up 
the  hill  towards  the  town.  By  turning  to  the  left,  how- 
ever, in  the  wake  of  other  new  boys  in  a  like  hurry,  they 
found  themselves  approaching  the  chapel  and  the  great 
schoolroom  by  a  shorter  route.  It  led  through  a  large 
square  quad  with  study  doors  opening  upon  it  down  two 
sides,  and  nothing  over  these  studies  but  their  own  roof. 

"There's  plenty  of  time,"  said  Jan,  with  rather  a 
furtive  look  at  a  littie  gold  lady's  watch  that  he  pulled 
out  in  his  fist.    "  I  wonder  if  this  is  the  Lodge  ?  " 

"No — it's  the  next — opposite  the  chapel.  This  is  the 
School  House.    Do  come  on  I" 

The  School  House  and  the  Lodge  were  like  none  of 
the  other  houses.  Instead  of  standing  by  themselves  in 
the  town  or  on  the  hill,  each  formed  a  part  of  the  distinctive 
group  of  which  the  chapel  and  the  great  schoolroom  were 
the  salient  features.  Their  quadrangles  not  only  adjoined, 
but  there  was  no  line  of  demarcation  to  show  where  one 
began  or  the  other  ended.  In  both  the  study  doors 
opened  straight  into  the  fresh  air;  but  in  neither  was 
a  boy  to  be  seen  as  Carpenter  and  Rutter  caught  up  the 
flying  remnant  of  the  forty-two. 

"  Let's  go  back  by  the  Lodge,"  said  Jan,  when  at  last 
they  were  let  out  for  good.  But  now  the  scene  was 
changing.  Groups  of  two  and  three  were  dotted  about  in 
animated  conversation,  some  still  in  their  journey  hats. 


VERY  RAW  MATERIAL  31 

others  in  old  school  caps  with  faded  badges,  but  none  who 
took  the  smallest  notice  of  the  new  boys  with  the  new 
badges,  which  they  had  still  to  learn  to  crease  correctly 
over  the  peak. 

And  now  it  was  that  Rutter  horrified  his  companion 
by  accosting  with  apparent  coolness  a  big  fellow  just 
emerged  from  one  of  the  Lodge  studies. 

"Do  you  mind  telling  us  if  a  boy  they  call  Devereux 
has  got  back  yet?"  asked  Jan,  with  more  of  his  own 
idioms  than  he  had  often  managed  to  utter  in  one  breath. 

"I  haven't  seen  him,"  the  big  fellow  answered  civilly 
enough.  But  his  stare  followed  the  retreating  couple, 
one  of  whom  had  caught  the  other  by  the  arm. 

"I  shouldn't  talk  about  *a  boy,*  if  I  were  you," 
Carpenter  was  saying  as  nicely  as  he  could. 

But  Rutter  was  quite  aware  of  his  other  solecisms, 
though  not  of  this  one,  and  was  already  too  furious  with 
himself  to  brook  a  gratuitous  rebuke. 

"Oh I  isn't  it  the  fashion?  Then  I'll  bet  you 
wouldn't!"  he  cried,  as  he  shook  off  the  first  arm  which 
had  ever  been  thrust  through  his  by  a  gentleman's  son. 

A  ball  like  a  big  white  bullet  was  making  staccato 
music  in  Heriot's  outer  fives-court;  two  school  caps  were 
bobbing  above  the  back  wall;  and  a  great  thick-lipped 
lad  of  sixteen  or  seventeen,  who  was  hanging  about  the 
door  leading  to  the  studies,  promptly  asked  the  new  boys 
their  names. 

"  What's  your  gov'nor  ?  "  he  added,  addressing  Carpen- 
ter first. 

"A  merchant." 

"A  rag-merchant,  I  should  think!    And  yours?" 

Jan  was  not  embarrassed  by  the  question;  he  was  best 
prepared  at  all  his  most  vulnerable  points.  But  his 
natural  bluntness  had  so  recently  caused  him  such  annoy- 


32  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

ance  with  himself,  that  he  replied  as  politely  as  he  pos- 
sibly could: 

"My  father  happens  to  be  dead." 

"Oh,  he  does,  does  he?"  cried  the  other  with  a  scowl. 
"Well,  if  you  happen  to  think  it  funny  to  talk  about 
'happening'  to  me,  you  may  jolly  soon  happen  to  wish 
you  were  dead  yourself!" 

The  tap  had  indeed  been  turned  on,  and  the  water  was 
certainly  rather  cold;  the  more  fortunate  for  Rutter  that 
his  skin  was  thick  enough  to  respond  with  a  glow  rather 
than  a  shiver. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SETTLING  IN 

Jan's  impressions  were  not  the  less  vivid  for  his  deter- 
mination not  to  be  impressed  at  all;  for  no  attitude  of 
mind  is  harder  to  sustain  than  one  of  deliberate  indiffer- 
ence, which  is  not  real  indifference  at  all,  but  at  best  a 
precarious  pose.  Jan  was  really  indifferent  to  a  large 
extent,  but  not  wholly,  and  the  leaven  of  sensibility 
rendered  him  acutely  alive  to  each  successive  phase  of  his 
experience;  on  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that  he  was  not 
too  easily  hurt  was  of  immense  value  in  keeping  his  wits 
about  him,  and  his  whole  garrison  of  senses  at  attention. 
Sensitive  he  was,  and  that  to  the  last  degree,  on  a  certain 
point;  but  it  was  a  point  no  longer  likely  to  arise  that 
night.  And  meanwhile  there  was  quite  enough  to  occupy 
his  mind. 

There  was  the  long-drawn  arrival  of  the  house,  unit  by 
unit,  in  bowler  hats  which  changed  as  if  by  magic  into  old 
school  caps,  and  even  in  "loud"  ties  duly  discarded  for 
solemn  black.  Then  there  was  tea,  with  any  amount  of 
good  cheer  in  hall,  every  fellow  bringing  in  some  delicacy 
of  his  own,  and  newcomers  arriving  in  the  middle  to  be 
noisily  saluted  by  their  friends.  Nobody  now  took  the 
slightest  notice  of  Jan,  who  drifted  into  a  humble  place  at 
the  long  table,  which  was  still  far  from  full,  and  fell  to 
work  upon  the  plain  bread  and  butter  provided,  until 
some  fellow  pushed  a  raised  pie  across  the  table  to  him 

33 


34  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

without  a  word.  The  matron  dispensed  tea  from  a  gigan- 
tic urn,  and  when  anybody  wanted  another  cup  he  sim- 
ply rattled  it  in  his  saucer.  Jan  could  have  made  even 
more  primitive  use  of  his  saucer,  for  the  tea  was  hot  if 
not  potent.  But  fortunately  there  were  some  things  it 
was  not  necessary  for  Carpenter  to  tell  him,  for  that  guide 
and  counsellor  was  not  in  hall;  he  had  gone  out  to  tea 
with  another  new  boy  and  his  people,  who  knew  some- 
thing about  him  at  home. 

Jan  was  allowed  to  spend  the  evening  in  an  empty 
study  which  he  might  or  might  not  be  able  to  take  over 
next  day,  according  to  the  place  assigned  to  him  in  the 
school;  meanwhile  the  bare  boards,  table,  Windsor  chair, 
and  book-shelf,  with  an  ironically  cold  hot-water  pipe,  and 
the  nails  with  which  the  last  occupant  had  studded  the 
walls,  looked  dismal  enough  in  the  light  of  a  solitary 
candle  supplied  by  Morgan.  The  narrow  passage  re- 
sounded with  shouts  of  laughter  and  boyish  badinage 
from  the  other  studies;  either  the  captain  of  the  house 
had  not  come  back,  or  he  was  not  the  man  to  play  the 
martinet  on  the  first  night  of  the  term;  and  Jan,  left  as 
severely  alone  as  even  he  could  have  wished,  rose  with 
alacrity  when  one  in  passing  pounded  on  his  door  and 
shouted  that  it  was  time  for  prayers.  He  was  in  fact  not 
sorry  to  mingle  with  his  kind  again  in  the  lighted  hall, 
where  the  fellows  were  already  standing  in  their  places  at 
table,  armed  with  hymn-books  but  chatting  merrily,  while 
one  of  the  small  fry  stood  sentinel  in  the  flagged  passage 
leading  to  the  green  baize  door.  Jan  had  scarcely  found 
a  place  when  in  flew  this  outpost  with  a  sepulchral "  hush ! " 
In  the  ensuing  silence  came  Miss  Heriot  followed  by  her 
brother,  who  began  by  giving  out  the  hymn  which  she 
played  on  the  piano  under  the  shelf  with  the  cups,  and 
which  the  house  sang  heartily  enough. 


SETTLING  IN  35 

It  was  one  of  the  many  disadvantages  of  Jan's  strange 
boyhood  that  he  had  been  brought  up  practically  without 
religion.  Mention  has  been  made  of  an  eccentric  clergy- 
man who  was  the  first  to  take  an  interest  in  Jan's 
intellectual  welfare;  unhappily,  his  eccentricities  had 
been  of  such  a  character  as  almost  to  stultify  his  spiritual 
pretensions;  and  in  his  new  home  the  boy  had  encountered 
another  type  of  clerical  example  which  had  been  but  little 
better  in  its  effect  upon  his  mind.  Prayer  had  never 
been  to  him  the  natural  practice  which  it  is  to  young 
English  schoolboys  of  all  shades  of  character  and  con- 
dition. So  he  paid  very  little  attention  to  the  prayers 
read  by  Heriot,  at  this  first  time  of  hearing;  but  even  so 
the  manly  unaffected  voice,  and  a  few  odd  phrases  on 
which  it  dwelt  in  gentler  tones,  were  not  altogether  lost 
upon  Jan.  Nevertheless,  when  he  went  up  to  dormitory, 
after  biscuits  (which  he  heard  called  "dog-rocks")  and 
milk,  and  another  dreary  half-hour  in  the  empty  study, 
the  last  thing  he  feared  or  thought  about  was  the  kind  of 
difficulty  which  had  beset  little  Arthur  in  a  certain  chapter 
of  Tom  Brown  which  had  not  appealed  to  Jan.  And  all 
this  may  be  why  he  was  so  much  impressed  by  what 
happened  in  the  little  dormitory  at  the  top  of  the  house, 
when  he  and  his  three  companions  were  undressing  for  bed. 

Joyce,  the  captain  of  the  dormitory,  who  proved  to  be 
a  rather  delicate  youth  with  a  most  indelicate  vocabulary, 
suddenly  ceased  firing,  as  it  were,  and  commanded  silence 
for  "bricks." 

"Know  what  'bricks*  are?"  asked  Bingley,  who 
occupied  the  "tish"  adjoining  Jan's,  and  turned  out  to  be 
a  boy  of  his  own  age,  instead  of  the  formidable  figure  of 
his  imagination. 

"It's  your  prayers,"  said  Joyce,  with  such  an  epithet 
that  Jan  could  not  possibly  believe  him. 


36  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"You  are  a  brute,  Joyce!"  cried  Crabtree,  poking  a 
clever  red  head  through  his  curtains. 

"Nevertheless,  my  boy,"  rejoined  Joyce,  imitating  a 
master  through  his  nose,  "I  know  what  bricks  are,  and  I 
say  them." 

"Obvious  corruption  of  'prex,"  began  Crabtree,  in 
didactic  fashion,  when  Joyce  cut  him  short  with  a  genial 
malediction,  and  silence  reigned  for  the  best  part  of  a 
minute. 

Jan  went  on  his  knees  with  the  others,  though  he  had 
not  done  so  the  night  before,  and  his  lips  moved  through 
the  Lord's  Prayer;  but  in  his  heart  he  was  marvelling  at 
the  language  of  the  nice  tall  fellow  in  the  far  comer.  It 
was  the  kind  of  language  he  had  often  heard  in  the  stables, 
but  it  was  the  last  kind  that  he  had  expected  to  hear 
in  a  public  school;  and  somehow  it  shocked  him,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life.  But  on  the  whole  he  was  thankful 
to  find  himself  in  such  pleasant  company  in  dormitory, 
and  it  came  to  him  to  express  his  thankfulness  while  he 
was  on  his  knees. 

Nothing  occurred,  as  they  lay  talking  in  the  dark,  to 
modify  the  new  boy's  feeling  on  this  point;  nor  had  he 
subsequent  occasion  to  revise  a  triple  opinion  which 
might  well  have  proved  premature  in  one  case  or  the 
other.  It  revealed  on  the  contrary  an  unusually  sound 
instinct  for  character.  Joyce's  only  foible  was  his  fond- 
ness for  free  language.  He  had  a  redeeming  sense  of 
humour,  and  it  was  in  treatment  rather  than  in  choice  of 
subject  that  he  erred.  Crabtree  was  irreproachable  in 
conversation,  and  a  kindly  creature  in  his  cooler  moods; 
but  he  suffered  from  the  curse  of  intellect,  was  preco- 
ciously didactic  and  dogmatic,  and  had  a  temperament  as 
fiery  as  his  hair.  Bingley  was  a  lively,  irresponsible,  curly- 
headed  dog,  who  enjoyed  life  in  an  insignificant  position 


SETTLING  IN  37 

both  in  and  out  of  school.  The  other  two  had  nicknames 
which  were  not  for  the  lips  of  new  boys;  but  Jan  called 
Bingley  "Toby"  after  the  first  night. 

Prayers  were  in  houses  on  the  first  morning  of  the 
term,  and  nothing  else  happened  before  or  after  breakfast 
until  the  whole  school  assembled  in  the  big  schoolroom 
at  ten  o'clock  to  hear  the  new  school  order.  Jan  pulled 
his  cap  over  his  eyes  as  he  found  himself  wedged  in  a 
crowd  from  all  the  houses,  converging  at  the  base  of  the 
worn  stone  spiral  stair  up  and  down  which  he  had  trotted 
at  his  ease  between  the  papers  of  the  previous  day.  Now 
he  was  slowly  hoisted  in  the  press,  the  breath  crushed 
from  his  body,  his  toes  only  occasionally  encountering  a 
solid  step,  a  helpless  atom  in  a  monster's  maw.  At  the 
top  of  the  stone  stairs,  however,  and  through  the  studded 
oak  door,  there  was  room  for  all;  but  here  it  was  necessary 
to  uncover  face  and  head;  and  yet  none  that  he  knew  of 
old  was  revealed  to  Jan's  close  though  furtive  scrutiny. 

Carpenter,  who  had  come  with  him,  and  squeezed  into 
the  next  seat,  watched  the  watcher  in  his  turn,  and  then 
whispered: 

"  He's  not  come  back  yet." 

"Who's  not?" 

"  Evan  Devereux.    I  asked  a  fellow  in  his  house." 

"  What  made  you  think  of  him  now  ?  " 

"Oh,  nothing.  I  only  thought  you  might  be  looking 
to  see  if  he  was  here." 

"Well,  perhaps  I  was,"  said  Jan,  with  grumpy  can- 
dour.   "  But  I'm  sure  I  don't  care  where  he  is." 

"No  more  do  I,  goodness  knows!"  said  Carpenter. 

And  between  three  and  four  hundred  chattered  on  all 
sides  with  subdued  but  ceaseless  animation;  the  prae- 
postors keeping  order  more  or  less,  but  themselves  chatting 
to  each  other  as  became  the  first  morning  of  the  term. 


38  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Then  suddenly  there  fell  an  impressive  silence.  The  oak 
door  opened  with  a  terrible  click  of  the  latch,  like  the 
cocking  of  a  huge  revolver,  and  in  trooped  all  the  masters, 
cap  in  hand  and  gown  on  shoulders,  led  by  a  little  old 
man  with  a  kindly,  solemn,  and  imperious  air.  And  Jan 
felt  that  this  could  only  be  Mr.  Thrale,  the  Head  Master, 
but  Carpenter  whispered: 

"That's  Jerry!" 

"Who?" 

"  Old  Thrale,  of  course,  but  everybody  calls  him  Jerry." 

And  Jan  liked  everybody's  impudence  as  Mr.  Thrale 
took  his  place  behind  a  simple  desk  on  the  dais,  and  read 
out  the  new  list,  form  by  form,  as  impressively  as  Holy 
Writ. 

The  first  names  that  Jan  recognised  were  those  of 
Loder,  the  captain  of  his  house,  and  Cave  major,  its  most 
distinguished  representative  on  tented  field;  they  were  in 
the  Upper  and  Lower  Sixth  respectively.  Joyce  was 
still  in  the  Remove,  as  captain  of  the  form,  but  Crabtree 
had  gained  a  double  remove  from  the  Lower  to  the  Upper 
Fifth.  Next  in  Jan's  ken  came  Shockley — the  fellow 
who  had  threatened  to  make  him  wish  he  was  dead — and 
then  most  thrillingly — ^long  before  either  expected  it — 
Carpenter's  name  and  his  own  in  quick  succession. 

"What  form  will  it  be?"  whispered  Jan  into  the 
other's  ear. 

"Middle  Remove,"  purred  Carpenter.  "And  we 
don't  have  to  fag  after  all!" 

Devereux  was  the  next  and  the  last  name  that  Jan 
remembered  hearing:  it  was  actually  in  the  form  below 
his! 

The  new  boys  had  already  learnt  that  it  was  customary 
for  the  masters  to  take  their  forms  in  hall  in  their  own 
houses;  they  now  discovered  that  Mr.  Haigh,  the  master  of 


SETTLING  IN  39 

the  Middle  Remove,  had  just  succeeded  to  the  most  re- 
mote of  all  the  hill  houses — the  one  house  in  fact  on  the 
further  slope  of  the  hill.  Thither  his  new  form  accordingly 
repaired,  and  on  the  good  ten  minutes'  walk  Carpenter  and 
Rutter  had  tlieir  heads  violently  knocked  together  by 
Shockley,  for  having  the  cheek  to  get  so  high  and  to 
escape  fagging  their  first  term. 

"But  you  needn't  think  you  have,"  he  added,  omi- 
nously. "If  you  young  swots  come  flying  into  forms  it 
takes  the  rest  of  us  two  years  to  get  to — by  the  sweat  of 
our  blessed  brows — by  the  Lord  Harry  you  shall  have  all 
the  swot  you  want!  You'll  do  the  construe  for  Buggins 
and  me  and  Eyre  major  every  morning  of  your  miserable 
lives!" 

Buggins  (who  rejoiced  in  a  real  name  of  less  dis- 
tinction, and  a  strong  metropolitan  accent)  was  climbing 
the  hill  arm-in-arm  with  Eyre  major  (better  known  as 
Jane),  his  echo  and  his  shadow  in  one  distended  skin. 
Buggins  embroidered  Shockley 's  threats,  and  Eyre  major 
contributed  a  faithful  laugh.  But  Jan  heard  them  all  un- 
moved, and  thought  the  less  of  Carpenter  when  his  thinner 
skin  changed  colour. 

Mr.  Haigh  gave  his  new  form  a  genial  welcome, 
vastly  reassuring  those  who  knew  least  about  him-  by 
laughing  uproariously  at  points  too  subtle  for  their  com- 
prehension. He  was  a  muscular  man  with  a  high  colour 
and  a  very  clever  head.  His  hair  was  turning  an  effective 
grey  about  the  temples,  his  body  bulging  after  the 
manner  of  bodies  no  longer  really  young  and  energetic. 
Energy  he  had,  however,  of  a  spasmodic  and  intemperate 
order,  though  he  only  showed  it  on  this  occasion  by 
savagely  pouncing  on  a  rather  small  boy  who  happened 
to  be  also  in  his  house.  Up  to  that  moment  Carpenter 
and  Rutter  were  ready  to  congratulate  themselves  and 


40  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

each  other  upon  their  first  form-master;  but,  though  he 
left  them  considerately  alone  for  a  day  or  two,  they  were 
never  sure  of  Mr.  Haigh  again. 

This  morning  he  merely  foreshadowed  his  scheme  of 
the  term's  work,  and  gave  out  a  list  of  the  new  books 
required;  but  some  of  these  were  enough  to  strike  terror 
to  the  heart  of  Jan,  and  others  made  Carpenter  look 
solemn.  Ancient  Greek  Geography  was  not  an  enticing 
subject  to  one  who  had  scarcely  beheld  even  a  modern 
map  until  the  last  six  months;  and  to  anybody  as  im- 
perfectly grounded  as  Carpenter  declared  himself  to  be, 
it  was  an  inhuman  jump  from  somebody's  Stories  in  Attic 
Greek  to  Thucydides  and  his  Peloponnesian  War. 

"I  suppose  it's  because  I  did  extra  well  at  something 
else,"  said  Carpenter  with  unconscious  irony  on  their  way 
down  the  hill.  "What  a  fool  I  was  not  to  take  that  fat 
chap's  advice!  Why,  I've  never  even  done  a  page  of 
Xenophon,  and  I'm  not  sure  that  I  could  say  the  Greek 
alphabet  to  save  my  life!" 

"  I  only  hope,"  rejoined  Jan,  "  that  they  haven't  gone 
and  judged  me  by  that  unseen!" 

But  their  work  began  lightly  enough,  and  that  first 
day  the  furnishing  of  their  studies  was  food  for  much 
more  anxious  thought,  with  Carpenter  at  any  rate.  As 
for  Jan,  he  really  was  indifferent  to  his  surroundings,  but 
the  excitable  enthusiasm  of  his  companion  made  him 
feign  even  greater  indifference  than  he  felt.  He  was  to 
retain  the  back  upstairs  study  in  which  he  had  spent  the 
previous  evening,  and  Carpenter  had  the  one  next  it; 
after  dinner  Heriot  signed  orders  for  carpet,  curtains, 
candles  and  candlesticks,  a  table-cloth  and  a  folding 
arm-chair  apiece,  as  well  as  for  stationery  and  a  quantity 
of  books;  and  Carpenter  led  the  way  to  the  upholsterer's 
at  a  happy  trot.    He  was  an  age  finding  curtains,  carpet 


SETTLING  IN  41 

and  table-cloth,  of  a  sufficiently  harmonious  shade  of  red; 
and  no  doubt  Jan  made  all  the  more  point  of  leaving  the 
choice  of  his  chattels  entirely  to  the  tradesman. 

"Send  me  what  you  think,"  he  said.  "It's  all  one  to 
me. 

Carpenter  rallied  him  in  all  seriousness  on  their  way 
back  to  the  house. 

"I  can't  understand  it,  Rutter,  when  you  have  an 
absolute  voice  in  everything." 

"I  hadn't  a  voice  in  coming  here,"  replied  Rutter,  so 
darkly  as  to  close  the  topic. 

"I  suppose  I  go  to  the  other  extreme,"  resumed 
Carpenter,  with  a  reflective  frankness  which  seemed  a 
characteristic.  "  I  shall  have  more  chairs  than  I've  room 
for  if  I  don't  take  care.  I've  bought  one  already  from 
Shockley." 

"Good-night!"  cried  Jan.  " Whatever  made  you  do 
that?" 

"  Oh,  he  would  have  me  into  his  study  to  have  a  look 
at  it;  and  there  were  a  whole  lot  of  them  there — that 
fellow  Buggins,  and  Jane  Eyre,  and  the  one  they  call 
Cranky — and  they  all  swore  it  was  as  cheap  as  dirt. 
There  are  some  beasts  here  I"  added  Carpenter  below  his 
breath. 

"How  much  was  it?" 

"Seven-and-six;  and  I  didn't  really  want  it  a  bit; 
and  one  of  the  legs  was  broken  all  the  time  I" 

"  And,"  added  Jan,  for  his  only  comment,  "  the  gang 
of  them  are  in  our  form  and  all!" 

They  met  most  of  the  house  trooping  out  of  the  quad, 
with  bats  and  pads,  but  not  in  flannels.  They  were  going 
to  have  a  house-game  on  the  Middle  Ground,  as  the 
September  day  was  warmer  than  many  of  the  moribund 
summer,  and  there  was  no  more  school  until  five  o'clock. 


42  FATHERS  OF  MEN  • 

Nor  did  it  require  the  menaces  of  Shockley  to  induce  the 
new  pair  to  turn  round  and  accompany  the  rest;  but 
their  first  game  of  cricket  was  not  a  happy  experience 
for  either  boy.  Cave  major,  who  was  in  the  Eleven,  was 
better  employed  among  his  peers  on  the  Upper.  Loder, 
who  was  no  cricketer,  picked  up  with  a  certain  Shears 
major,  who  was  not  much  of  one.  Nobody  took  the  game  in 
the  least  seriously  except  a  bowler  off  whom  the  unlucky 
Carpenter  managed  to  miss  two  catches.  The  two  new 
men  were  chosen  last  on  either  side.  They  failed  to 
make  a  run  between  them,  and  of  course  had  no 
opportunity  of  showing  whether  they  could  bowl.  Both 
were  depressed  when  it  was  all  over. 

"  It  served  me  right  for  dropping  those  catches,"  said 
Carpenter,  however,  with  the  stoicism  of  a  true  cricketer 
at  heart. 

"I  only  wish  it  was  last  term  instead  of  this!" 
muttered  Jan. 

There  was  another  thing  that  disappointed  both  boys. 
The  Lodge  happened  to  be  playing  a  similar  game  on  an 
adjacent  pitch.  But  Devereux  was  not  among  the 
players,  and  Carpenter  heard  somebody  say  that  he  was 
not  coming  back  till  half-term.  Jan's  heart  jumped 
when  he  heard  it  in  his  turn:  by  half-term  he  would  have 
settled  down,  by  half-term  many  things  might  have 
happened.  Yet  the  deferred  meeting  was  still  fraught  in 
his  mind  with  opposite  possibilities,  that  swung  to 
either  extreme  on  the  pendulum  of  his  mood;  and  on 
the  whole  he  would  have  been  glad  to  get  it  over.  At 
one  moment  this  half-term's  grace  was  a  keen  relief  to 
him;  at  another,  a  keener  disappointment. 


CHAPTER  V 

NICKNAMES 

The  ready  invention  and  general  felicity  of  the  public- 
school  nickname  are  points  upon  which  few  public-school 
men  are  likely  to  disagree.  If  it  cannot  be  contended 
that  either  Carpenter  or  Rutter  afforded  a  supreme 
example,  at  least  each  was  nicknamed  before  he  had  been 
three  days  in  the  school,  and  in  each  case  the  nickname 
was  too  good  an  accidental  fit  to  be  easily  repudiated  or 
forgotten.  Thus,  although  almost  every  Carpenter  has 
been  "  Chips"  in  his  day,  there  was  something  about  a  big 
head  thrust  forward  upon  rather  round  shoulders,  and  a 
tendency  to  dawdle  when  not  excited,  that  did 
recall  the  most  dilatory  of  domestic  workmen.  Chips 
Carpenter,  however,  albeit  unduly  sensitive  in  some 
things,  had  the  wit  to  accept  his  immediate  sobriquet  as 
a  compliment.  And  in  the  end  it  was  not  otherwise 
with  Rutter;  but  in  his  case  there  were  circumstances 
which  made  his  nickname  a  secret  bitterness,  despite  the 
valuable  stamp  it  set  upon  his  character  in  the  public 
eye. 

It  happened  that  on  the  Saturday  afternoon,  directly 
after  dinner,  the  majority  of  the  house  were  hanging 
about  the  quad  when  there  entered  an  incongruous  figure 
from  the  outer  world.  This  was  a  peculiarly  debased 
reprobate,  a  local  character  of  pothouse  notoriety,  whose 

43 


44  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

chief  haunt  was  the  courtyard  of  the  Mitre,  and  whom 
the  boys  in  the  quad  saluted  familiarly  as  "Mulberry," 
And  that  here  was  yet  another  instance  of  the  appropri- 
ate nickname,  a  glance  was  enough  to  show,  for  never 
did  richer  hue  or  bigger  nose  deface  the  human  counte- 
nance. 

The  trespasser  was  only  slightly  but  quite  humorously 
drunk,  and  the  fellows  in  the  quad  formed  a  not 
unappreciative  audience  of  the  type  of  entertainment  to 
be  expected  from  a  being  in  that  precise  condition.  Mul- 
berry, however,  was  not  an  ordinary  stable  sot;  it  was 
obvious  that  he  had  seen  better  days.  He  had  ragged  tags 
of  Latin  on  the  tip  of  a  somewhat  treacherous  tongue :  he 
inquired  quite  tenderly  after  the  binominal  theororum,  but 
ascribed  an  unpleasant  expression  correctly  enough  to  a 
lapsus  linguae. 

"  I  say.  Mulberry,  you  are  a  swell ! " 
"We  give  you  full  marks  for  that.  Mulberry!" 
"  My  dear  young  friends,"  quoth  Mulberry,  "  I  knew 
Latin  before  any  of  you  young  devils  knew  the  light." 
"Draw  it  mild,  Mulberry!" 

"  I  wish  you'd  give  us  a  construe  before  second  school ! " 
Jan  remembered  all  his  days  the  stray  strange  picture 
of  the  debauched  intruder  in  the  middle  of  the  sunlit 
quad,  with  the  figures  of  young  and  wholesome  life 
standing  aloof  from  him  in  good-natured  contempt,  and 
more  fresh  faces  at  the  ivy-mantled  study  windows.  Jan 
happened  to  be  standing  nearest  Mulberry,  and  to 
catch  a  bloodshot  eye  as  it  flickered  over  his  audience  in 
a  comprehensive  wink. 

"You  bet  I  wasn't  always  a  groom,"  said  Mulberry; 
"an'  if  I  had  ha'  been,  there  are  worse  places  than  the 
stables,  ain't  there,  young  fellow?" 

Jan  looked  as  though  he  only  wished  the  ground 


NICKNAMES  45 

would  open  and  engulf  him;  and  the  look  did  not 
belie  his  momentary  feeling.  But  he  had  a  spirit  more 
easily  angered  than  abased,  and  the  brown  flush  which 
swept  him  from  collar  to  cap  was  not  one  of  unmixed 
embarrassment. 

"How  should  I  know?"  he  cried  in  a  voice  shrill 
with  indignation. 

"He  seems  to  know  more  about  it  than  he'll  say," 
observed  Mulberry,  and  with  another  wink  he  fastened 
his  red  eyes  on  Jan,  who  had  his  cap  pulled  over  his  eyes  as 
ususal,  and  arms  akimbo  for  the  want  of  trousers  pockets. 
"Just  the  cut  of  a  jock!"  added  Mulberry,  in  quite  a 
complimentary  murmur. 

"You're  an  ugly  blackguard,"  shouted  Jan,  "and  I 
wonder  anybody  can  stand  and  listen  to  you!" 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Heriot  appeared  very 
suddenly  upon  the  scene,  took  the  intruder  by  either 
shoulder,  and  had  him  out  of  the  quad  in  about  a  second; 
in  another  Heriot  rejoined  the  group  in  the  sun,  with  a 
pale  face  and  flashing  spectacles. 

"You're  quite  right,"  he  said  sharply  to  Jan.  "I 
wonder,  too — at  every  one  of  you — at  every  one!" 

And  he  turned  on  his  heel  and  was  gone,  leaving  them 
stinging  with  his  scorn;  and  Jan  would  have  given  a 
finger  from  his  hand  to  have  gone  as  well  without  more 
words;  but  he  found  himself  henmied  in  by  clenched  fists 
and  furious  faces,  his  back  to  the  green  iron  palings  under 
the  study  windows. 

"You  saw  Heriot  coming!" 

"You  said  that  to  suck  up  to  him!" 

"The  beastly  cheek,  for  a  beastly  new  man!'* 

"  But  we  saw  through  it,  and  so  did  he!" 

"Trust  old  Heriot!  You  don't  find  that  sort  o*  thing 
pay  with  him." 


46  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"I  never  saw  him,"  said  Jan  steadily,  despite  a 
thumping  heart,  "  so  you  can  say  what  you  like." 

And  he  took  a  heavy  buffet  from  Shockley  without 
wincing. 

"And  why  should  you  lose  your  wool  with  poor  old 
Mulberry?"  that  worthy  demanded  with  a  fine  show  of 
charity.  "  One  would  think  there  was  something  in  what 
he  said." 

"  You  fairly  stink  of  the  racing-stables,"  said  Buggins. 
"You  know  you  do,  you  brute!" 

And  Eyre  major  led  a  laugh. 

"Racing-stables I"  echoed  Shockley.  "There's  more 
of  the  stable-boy  about  him  than  the  jock." 

Jan  folded  his  arms  and  listened  stoically. 

"  Ostler's  lad,"  said  one  satirist. 

'"  Nineteenth  groom,"  from  another. 

"The  tiger!"  piped  a  smaller  boy  than  Jan.  "The 
tiger  that  sits  behind  the  dog-cart — see  how  he  folds 
his  arms!" 

And  the  imp  folded  his  at  the  most  untimely  moment; 
for  this  was  more  than  Jan  was  going  to  stand.  Sub- 
mission to  superior  force  was  a  law  of  nature  which  his 
common  sense  recognised  and  his  self-control  enabled  him 
to  keep;  but  to  take  from  a  boy  inches  shorter  than 
himself  what  had  to  be  taken  from  one  as  many  inches 
taller,  just  because  they  were  all  against  him,  was  further 
than  his  forbearance  would  go.  His  flat  left  hand  flew 
out  as  the  smaller  boy  folded  his  arms,  and  it  fell  with  a 
resounding  smack  upon  the  side  of  an  undefended  head. 

Within  the  fewest  possible  moments  Jan  had  been 
pinned  against  the  palings  by  the  bigger  fellows,  his  arm 
twisted,  his  person  violently  kicked,  his  own  ears  soundly 
boxed  and  filled  with  abuse.  This  was  partly  because  he 
fought  and  kicked  as  long  as  he  had  a  free  leg  or  arm. 


NICKNAMES  47 

But  through  it  all  the  satisfaction  of  that  one  resounding 
smack  survived,  and  kept  the  infuriated  Jan  just  sane 
enough  to  stop  short  of  tooth  and  nail  when  finally 
overwhelmed. 

"  Tiger's  the  word,"  panted  Shockley,  when  they  were 
about  done  with  him.  "But  if  you  try  playing  the  tiger 
here,  ever  again,  you  son  of  a  gun,  you'll  be  killed  by 
inches,  as  sure  as  you're  blubbing  now!  So  you'd  better 
creep  into  your  lair,  you  young  tiger,  and  lie  down  and 
die  like  a  mangy  dog!'* 

It  had  taken  some  minutes  to  produce  the  tears,  but 
the  tears  did  not  quench  the  fierce  animosity  of  the  eyes 
that  shed  them,  and  they  were  dry  before  Jan  gained  his 
study  and  slammed  the  door.  And  there  you  may  picture 
him  in  the  chair  at  the  table,  on  the  still  bare  boards: 
hot,  dishevelled,  aching  and  ashamed,  yet  rejoicing  in  his 
misery  at  the  one  shrewd  left-hand  smack  he  had  some- 
how administered  upon  an  impudent  though  defenceless 
head. 

He  could  hear  it  for  his  consolation  all  the  afternoon! 

The  studies  emptied;  it  was  another  belated  summer's 
day,  and  there  was  a  game  worth  watching  on  the  Upper. 
Soon  there  was  no  sound  to  be  heard  but  those  from  the 
street,  which  came  through  the  upper  part  of  the  ground- 
glass  window,  the  only  part  of  the  back  study  windows  that 
was  made  to  open;  but  Jan  sat  staring  at  the  wall  before 
his  eyes,  as  though  the  fresh  air  was  nothing  to  him,  as 
though  he  had  not  been  brought  up  in  his  shirtsleeves  in 
and  out  of  the  open  air  in  all  weathers.  .  .  And  so  he  was 
still  sitting  when  a  hesitating  step  came  along  the  passage, 
paused  in  the  next  study,  and  then,  but  not  for  a  minute 
or  two,  at  Jan's  door. 

"  What  do  you  want  ? "  he  demanded  rudely,  when  he 
had  responded  to  a  half-hearted  knock  by  admitting  Chips 


48  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Carpenter.  Now,  Chips  had  witnessed  just  the  bitter  end 
of  the  scene  in  the  quad,  but  Jan  did  not  know  he  had 
been  there  at  all. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  exactly  want  anything.  I  can  clear  out 
if  you'd  rather,  Rutter." 

"All  right.    I'd  rather." 

"Only  I  thought  I'd  tell  you  it's  call-over  on  the 
Upper  in  half-an-hour." 

"  I'm  not  going  to  call-over." 

"Whatf" 

"  Damn  call-over." 

Carpenter  winced:  he  did  not  like  swearing,  and  he 
did  like  Rutter  well  enough  to  wince  when  he  swore. 
But  the  spirit  of  the  oath  promptly  blotted  the  letter  from 
his  mind.  Carpenter  was  a  law-abiding  boy  who  had 
been  a  few  terms  at  a  good  preparatory  school;  he  could 
scarcely  believe  his  ears,  much  less  a  word  of  Rutter's  idle 
boast.  Rutter  certainly  looked  as  though  he  meant  it, 
with  his  closed  lid  of  a  mouth,  and  his  sullen  brooding  eyes. 
But  his  mad  intention  was  obviously  not  to  be  carried  out. 

"  My  dear  man,"  said  Carpenter,  "  it's  one  of  the  first 
rules  of  the  school.  Have  you  read  them?  You'd  get 
into  a  frightful  row!" 

"The  bigger  the  better." 

"You  might  even  get  bunked,"  continued  Chips,  who 
was  acquiring  the  school  terminology  as  fast  as  he  could, 
"  for  cutting  call-over  on  purpose." 

"Let  them  bunk  me!  Do  you  think  I  care?  I  never 
wanted  to  come  here.  I'd  as  soon've  gone  to  prison.  It 
can't  be  worse.  At  any  rate  they  let  you  alone — they  got 
to.  But  here  .  .  .  let  them  bunk  me!  It's  the  very 
thing  I  want.  I  loathe  this  hole,  and  everything  about  it. 
I  don't  care  whether  you  say  it's  one  of  the  best  schools 
going,  or  what  you  say!'* 


NICKNAMES  49 

"I  say  it's  the  best.  I  know  I  wouldn't  swop  it  for 
any  other — or  let  a  little  bullying  put  me  against  it. 
And  I  have  been  bullied,  if  you  want  to  know!" 

"Perhaps  you're  proud  of  that?" 

**  I  hate  it,  Rutter!  I  hate  lots  of  things  more  than  you 
think.  You're  in  that  little  dormitory.  You're  well  off. 
But  I  didn't  come  here  expecting  to  find  it  all  skittles. 
And  I  wouldn't  be  anywhere  else  if  it  was  twenty  times 
worse  than  it  is!" 

Rutter  looked  at  the  ungainly  boy  with  the  round 
shoulders  and  the  hanging  head;  for  the  moment  he  was 
improved  out  of  knowledge,  his  flat  chest  swelling,  his 
big  head  thrown  back,  a  proud  flush  upon  his  face. 
There  was  a  touch  of  consciousness  in  the  pride,  but  it 
was  none  the  less  real  for  that,  and  Jan  could  only  marvel 
at  it.  He  could  not  understand  this  pride  of  school;  but 
he  could  see  it,  and  envy  it  in  his  heart,  even  while  a 
fresh  sneer  formed  upon  his  lips.  He  wished  he  was  not 
such  an  opposite  extreme  to  Carpenter:  he  could  not  know 
that  the  other's  attitude  was  possibly  unique,  that  few  at 
all  events  came  to  school  with  such  ready-made  enthusi- 
asm for  their  school,  if  fewer  still  brought  his  own  antag- 
onism. 

But,  after  all,  Carpenter  did  not  understand,  and  never 
would. 

"You  weren't  in  the  quad  just  now,"  said  Jan,  grimly. 

Chips  looked  the  picture  of  guilt. 

"I  was.    At  the  end.    And  I  feel  such  a  brute!" 

"You?  Why?"  Jan  was  frowning  at  him.  "You 
weren't  one  of  them?" 

"Of  course  I  wasn't!  But — I  might  have  stood  by 
you — and  I  didn't  do  a  thing!" 

The  wish  to  show  some  spirit  in  his  turn,  the  envious 
admiration  for  a  quality  of  which  he  daily  felt  the  want. 


50  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

both  part  and  parcel  of  one  young  nature,  like  the  romantic 
outlook  upon  school  life,  were  equally  foreign  and  incom- 
prehensible to  the  other.  Jan  could  only  see  Carpenter 
floundering  to  the  rescue,  with  his  big  head  and  his  little 
wrists;  and  the  vision  made  him  laugh,  though  not  un- 
kindly. 

"  You  would  have  been  a  fool,"  he  said. 

"I  wish  I  had  been!" 

"Then  you  must  be  as  big  a  one  as  I  was." 

"But  you  weren't,  Rutter!  That's  just  it.  You  don't 
know!" 

"I  know  I  was  fool  enough  to  lose  my  wool,  as  they 
call  it." 

"You  mean  man  enough!  I  believe  the  chaps  respect 
a  chap  who  lets  out  without  thinking  twice  about  it,"  said 
Carpenter,  treading  on  a  truth  unawares.  "I  should  al- 
ways be  frightened  of  being  laughed  at  all  the  more,"  he 
added,  with  one  of  his  inward  glances  and  the  sigh  it 
fetched.  "  But  you've  done  better  than  you  think.  The 
fellows  at  the  bottom  of  the  house  won't  hustle  you.  I 
heard  Petrie  telling  them  he'd  never  had  his  head  smacked 
so  hard  in  his  life!" 

Jan  broke  into  smiles. 

"  I  did  catch  him  a  warm  'un,"  he  said.  "  I  wish  you'd 
been  there." 

"I  only  wish  it  had  been  one  of  the  big  brutes," 
said  Chips,  conceiving  a  Goliath  in  his  thirst  for  the 
ideal. 

"  I  don't,'*  said  Jan.  "  He  was  trading  on  them  being 
there,  and  by  gum  he  was  right!  But  they  didn't  pre- 
vent me  from  catching  him  a  warm  'un!" 

And  in  his  satisfaction  the  epithet  almost  rhymed  with 
harm. 

Nevertheless,  Jan  looked  another  and  a  brighter  being 


NICKNAMES  51 

as  he  stood  up  and  asked  Carpenter  what  his  collar  was 
like. 

Carpenter  had  to  tell  him  it  was  not  fit  to  be  seen. 

Jan  wondered  where  he  could  find  the  matron  to  give 
him  a  clean  one. 

"Her  room's  at  the  top  of  the  house  near  your 
dormitory.    I  daresay  she'd  be  there." 

"I  suppose  I'd  better  go  and  see.     Come  on!" 

"Shall  we  go  down  to  the  Upper  together?"  Chips 
asked  as  they  reached  the  quad. 

"I  don't  mind." 

"Then  I'll  wait,  if  you  won't  be  long." 

And  the  boy  in  the  quad  thought  the  other  had  quite 
forgotten  his  mad  idea  of  cutting  call-over — which  was  not 
far  from  the  truth — and  that  he  had  not  meant  it  for  a 
moment — which  was  as  far  from  the  truth  as  it  could  be. 
But  even  Carpenter  hardly  realised  that  it  was  he  who  had 
put  Rutter  on  better  terms  with  himself,  and  in  saner 
humour  altogether,  by  the  least  conscious  and  least  inten- 
tional of  all  his  arguments. 

Jan  meanwhile  was  being  informed  upstairs  that  he 
was  not  supposed  to  go  to  his  dormitory  in  daytime,  but 
that  since  he  was  there  he  had  better  have  a  comfortable 
wash  as  well  as  a  clean  collar.  So  he  came  down  looking 
perhaps  smarter  and  better  set-up  than  at  any  moment 
since  his  arrival.  And  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  the  hall 
door  stood  open,  showing  a  boy  or  two  within  looking  over 
the  new  illustrated  papers;  and  one  of  the  boys  was  young 
Petrie. 

Jan  stood  a  moment  at  the  door.  Either  his  imagi- 
nation flattered  him,  or  young  Petrie's  right  ear  was  still 
rather  red.  But  he  was  a  good  type  of  small  boy,  clear- 
skinned,  bright-eyed,  well-groomed.  And  even  as  Jan 
watched  him  he  cast  down  the  Graphic,  stretched  himself, 


52  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

glanced  at  the  clock,  and  smiled  quite  pleasantly  as  they 
stood  face  to  face  upon  the  threshold. 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  Jan,  not  as  though  he  were  unduly 
sorry,  but  yet  without  a  moment's  thought. 

"That's  all  right.  Tiger!'*  replied  young  Petrie, 
brightly.  "But  I  wouldn't  lose  my  wool  again,  if  I  were 
you.    It  don't  pay,  Tiger,  you  take  my  tip." 


CHAPTER  VI 

BOY  TO  BOY 

The  match  on  the  Upper,  although  an  impromptu  fixture 
on  the  strength  of  an  Indian  summer's  day,  was  exciting 
no  small  interest  in  the  school.  It  was  between  the 
champion  house  at  cricket  and  the  best  side  that  could  be 
got  together  from  all  the  other  houses;  and  the  interest- 
ing point  was  the  pronounced  unpopularity  of  the 
champions  (one  of  the  hill  houses),  due  to  the  insufferable 
complacency  with  which  they  were  said  to  have  received 
the  last  of  many  honours.  The  whole  house  was  accused 
of  having  "  an  awful  roll  on,"  and  it  was  the  fervent  hope 
of  the  rest  of  the  school  that  their  delegates  would  do 
something  to  diminish  this  offensive  characteristic.  Boys 
were  lying  round  the  ground  on  rugs,  and  expressing  their 
feelings  after  almost  every  ball,  when  Chips  and  Jan  crept 
shyly  upon  the  scene.  But  within  five  minutes  a  bell  had 
tinkled  on  top  of  the  pavilion;  the  game  had  been  stopped 
because  it  was  not  a  real  match  after  all;  and  three  or 
four  hundred  boys,  most  of  them  with  rugs  over  their  arms, 
huddled  together  in  the  vicinity  of  the  heavy  roller. 

It  so  happened  that  Heriot  was  call-over  master  of  the 
day.  He  stood  against  the  roller  in  a  weather-beaten 
straw  hat,  rapping  out  the  names  in  his  abrupt,  unmistak- 
able tones,  with  a  lightning  glance  at  almost  every  atom 
that  said  "Here,  sir!"  and  detached  itself  from  the  mass. 

53 


54  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

The  mass  was  deflating  rapidly,  and  Jan  was  moistening 
his  Hps  before  opening  them  for  the  first  time  in  pubHc, 
when  a  reddish  head,  whose  shoulders  were  wedged  not 
far  in  front  of  him,  suddenly  caught  Jan's  eye. 

"Shockley." 

"Here,  sir." 

"  Nunn  minor.'* 

"Here,  sir." 

"Carpenter." 

"Here,  sir." 

"Rutter." 

No  answer.    Heriot  looking  up  with  pencil  poised. 

"Rutter?" 

"Here,  sir!" 

And  out  slips  Jan  in  dire  confusion,  to  join  Carpenter 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  throng;  to  be  cursed  under 
Shockley's  breath;  and  just  to  miss  the  stare  of  the  boy 
with  reddish  hair,  who  has  turned  a  jovial  face  on  hearing 
the  name  for  the  second  time. 

"I  say,  Carpenter!" 

"Yes?" 

"  Did  you  see  who  that  was  in  front  of  us  ?  " 

"You  bet!  And  they  said  he  wasn't  coming  back  till 
half-term!    I'm  going  to  wait  for  him." 

"  Then  don't  say  anything  about  me — see  ?  He  never 
saw  me,  so  don't  say  anything  about  me." 

And  off  went  Jan  to  watch  the  match,  more  excited 
than  when  he  had  lost  self-control  in  the  quad;  the 
difference  was  that  he  did  not  lose  it  for  a  moment  now. 
He  heard  the  name  of  Devereux  called  over  in  its  turn. 
He  knew  that  Carpenter  had  joined  Devereux  a  moment 
later.  He  wondered  whether  Devereux  had  seen  him 
also — seen  him  from  the  first  and  pretended  not  to  see 
him — or  only  this  minute  while  talking  to  Chips?    Was 


BOY  TO  BOY  55 

he  questioning  Chips,  or  telling  him  everything  in  a 
torrent  ? 

Jan  felt  them  looking  at  him,  felt  their  glances  like 
fire  upon  his  neck  and  ears,  as  one  told  and  the  other 
listened.  But  he  did  not  turn  round.  He  swore  in  his 
heart  that  no  power  should  induce  him  to  turn  round. 
And  he  kept  his  vow  for  minutes  and  minutes  that  seemed 
like  hours  and  hours. 

It  was  just  as  well,  for  he  would  have  seen  with  his 
eyes  exactly  what  he  saw  in  his  mind,  and  that  was  not 
all  there  was  to  see.  There  was  something  else  that  Jan 
must  have  seen — and  might  have  seen  through — had  his 
will  failed  him  during  the  two  minutes  after  call-over. 
That  was  the  celerity  with  which  Heriot  swooped  down 
upon  Devereux  and  Carpenter;  laid  his  hand  upon  the 
shoulder  of  the  boy  who  had  won  his  last  term's  prize; 
stood  chatting  energetically  with  the  pair,  chatting  almost 
sharply,  and  then  left  them  in  his  abrupt  way  with  a  nod 
and  a  smile. 

But  Jan  stood  square  as  a  battalion  under  fire,  watch- 
ing a  game  in  which  he  did  not  follow  a  single  ball;  and 
as  he  stood  his  mind  changed,  though  not  his  will.  He 
wanted  to  speak  to  Evan  Devereux  now.  At  least  he 
wanted  Evan  to  come  and  speak  to  him;  in  a  few  minutes, 
he  was  longing  for  that.  But  no  Evan  came.  And  when 
at  length  he  did  turn  round,  there  was  no  Evan  to  come, 
and  no  Chips  Carpenter  either. 

The  game  was  in  its  last  and  most  exciting  stage 
when  Jan  took  himself  off  the  ground;  feeling  ran  high 
upon  the  rugs,  and  expressed  itself  more  shrilly  and  even 
pftener  than  before;  and  such  a  storm  of  cheering  chanced 
to  follow  Jan  into  the  narrow  country  street,  that  two  boys 
quite  a  long  way  ahead  looked  back  with  one  accord. 
They  did  not  see  Jan.    They  were  on  the  sunny  side;  he 


66  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

was  in  the  shade.  But  he  found  himself  following 
Devereux  and  Carpenter  perforce,  because  their  way  was 
his.  He  slackened  his  pace;  they  stopped  at  the  market- 
place, and  separated  obviously  against  Carpenter's  will. 
Carpenter  pursued  his  way  to  Heriot's.  Devereux  turned 
to  the  left  across  the  market-place,  into  the  shadow  of  the 
old  grey  church  with  the  dominant  spire,  with  the  blue- 
faced  clock  that  struck  in  the  night,  and  so  to  the  school 
buildings  and  his  own  quad  by  the  short  cut  from  the  hill. 
And  Jan  dogged  him  all  the  way,  lagging  behind  when 
his  unconscious  leader  stopped  to  greet  a  friend,  or  to  look 
at  a  game  of  fives  in  the  School  House  court,  and  in  the 
end  seeing  Devereux  safely  into  his  study  before  he 
followed  and  gave  a  knock. 

Evan  had  scarcely  shut  his  door  before  it  was  open 
again,  but  in  that  moment  he  had  cast  his  cap,  and  he 
stood  bareheaded  against  the  dark  background  of  his  tiny 
den,  in  a  frame  of  cropped  ivy.  It  was  an  effective 
change,  and  an  effective  setting,  in  his  case.  His  hair  was 
not  red,  but  it  was  a  pale  auburn,  and  peculiarly  fine  in 
quality.  In  a  flash  Jan  remembered  it  in  long  curls,  and 
somebody  saying,  "What  a  pity  he's  not  a  girl!"  And 
with  this  striking  hair  there  had  always  been  the  peculiarly 
delicate  and  transparent  skin  which  is  part  of  the  type; 
there  had  nearly  always  been  laughing  eyes,  and  a  merry 
mouth;  and  here  they  all  were  in  his  study  doorway,  with 
hardly  any  difference  that  Jan  could  see,  though  he  had 
dreaded  all  the  diifference  in  the  world.  And  yet,  the 
smile  was  not  quite  the  old  smile,  and  a  flush  came  first; 
and  Evan  looked  past  Jan  into  the  quad,  before  inviting 
him  in;  and  even  then  he  did  not  shake  hands,  as  he  had 
often  done  on  getting  home  for  the  holidays,  when  Jan's 
hand  was  not  fit  to  shake. 

But  he  laughed  quite  merrily  when  the  door  was  shut. 


BOY  TO  BOY  57 

And  Jan,  remembering  that  ready  laugh  of  old,  and  how 
little  had  always  served  to  ring  a  hearty  peal,  saw 
nothing  forced  or  hurtful  in  it  now,  but  joined  in  himself 
with  a  shamefaced  chuckle. 

"It  is  funny,  isn't  it?"  he  mumbled.  "Me  being 
here!" 

"I  know!"  said  Evan,  with  laughing  eyes  fixed  none 
the  less  curiously  on  Jan. 

"When  did  you  get  back?"  inquired  Jan,  speedily 
embarrassed  by  the  comic  side. 

"  Only  just  this  afternoon.  I  went  and  had  mumps  at 
home." 

"  That  was  a  bad  job,"  said  Jan,  solemnly.  "  It  must 
have  spoilt  your  holidays." 

"It  did,  rather." 

"  You  wouldn't  expect  to  find  me  here,  I  suppose  ?  '* 

"  Never  thought  of  it  till  I  heard  your  name  called  over 
and  saw  it  was  you.     I  hear  you're  in  Bob's  house?" 

"  In  Mr.  Heriot's,"  affirmed  Jan,  respectfully. 

"  We  don't '  mister'  'em  behind  their  backs,"  said  Evan, 
in  tears  of  laughter.  "  It's  awfully  funny,"  he  explained, 
"but  I'm  awfully  glad  to  see  you." 

"Thanks,"  said  Jan.  "But  it's  not  such  fun  for  me, 
you  know." 

"  I  should  have  thought  you'd  like  it  awfully,"  remarked 
Evan,  still  looking  the  new  Jan  merrily  up  and  down. 

"  After  the  stables,  I  suppose  you  mean  ?  " 

Evan  was  more  than  serious  in  a  moment. 

"  I  wasn't  thinking  of  them,"  he  declared,  with  an  in- 
dignant flush. 

"But  I  was!'*  cried  Jan.  "And  I'd  give  something 
to  be  back  in  them,  if  you  want  to  know!" 

"You  won't  feel  like  that  long,'*  said  Evan,  reassur- 
ingly. 


58  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Won't  I!" 

"Why  should  you?" 

"  I  never  wanted  to  come  here,  for  one  thing." 

"  You'll  like  it  well  enough,  now  you  are  here." 

"I  hate  it!" 

"Only  to  begin  with;  lots  of  chaps  do  at  first." 

"I  always  shall.  I  never  wanted  to  come  here;  it 
wasn't  my  doing,  I  can  tell  you." 

Evan  stared,  but  did  not  laugh;  he  was  now  studiously 
kind  in  look  and  word,  and  yet  there  was  something  about 
both  that  strangely  angered  Jan.  Look  and  word,  in  fact, 
were  alike  instinctively  measured,  and  the  kindness  per- 
functory if  not  exactly  condescending.  There  was,  to  be 
sure,  no  conscious  reminder,  on  Evan's  part,  of  past 
inequality;  and  yet  there  was  just  as  little  to  show  that 
in  their  new  life  Evan  was  prepared  to  treat  Jan  as  an 
equal;  nay,  on  their  former  footing  he  had  been  far  more 
friendly.  If  his  present  manner  augured  anything,  he  was 
to  be  neither  the  friend  nor  the  foe  of  Jan's  extreme  hopes 
and  fears.  And  the  unforeseen  mien  was  not  the  less  con- 
fusing and  exasperating  because  Jan  was  confused  and 
exasperated  without  at  the  time  quite  knowing  why. 

"You  needn't  think  it  was  because  you  were  here," 
he  added  suddenly,  aggressively — "  because  I  thought  you 
were  at  Winchester." 

"I  didn't  flatter  myself,"  retorted  Evan.  "But,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  should  be  there  if  I  hadn't  got  a  scholar- 
ship here." 

"So  I  suppose,"  said  Jan. 

"And  yet  I'm  in  the  form  below  you!" 

Evan  was  once  more  openly  amused  at  this,  and 
perhaps  not  so  secretly  annoyed  as  he  imagined. 

"I  know,"  said  Jan.  "That  wasn't  my  fault,  either. 
I  doubt  they've  placed  me  far  too  high." 


BOY  TO  BOY  59 

"  But  how  did  you  manage  to  get  half  so  high  ?  "  asked 
Evan,  with  a  further  ingenuous  display  of  what  was  in 
his  mind. 

"  Well,  there  was  the  vicar,  to  begin  with." 

"That  old  sinner!"  said  Evan. 

"  I  used  to  go  to  him  three  nights  a  week." 

*'  Now  I  remember." 

"Then  you  heard  what  happened  when  my  father 
died?" 

"Yes." 

"  It  would  be  a  surprise  to  you,  Master  Evan  ? " 

It  had  been  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue  more  than  once, 
but  until  now  he  had  found  no  difficulty  in  keeping  it 
there.  Yet  directly  they  got  back  to  the  old  days,  out  it 
slipped  without  a  moment's  warning. 

"You'd  better  not  call  me  that  again,"  said  Evan,  dryly. 

"I  won't." 

"Unless  you  want  the  whole  school  to  know!" 

"You  see,  my  mother's  friends " 

"I  know.  I've  heard  all  about  it.  I  always  had 
heard — about  your  mother." 

Jan  had  only  heard  that  pitiful  romance  from  his 
father's  dying  lips;  it  was  then  the  boy  had  promised  to 
obey  her  family  in  all  things,  and  his  coming  here  was 
the  first  thing  of  all.  He  said  as  much  in  his  own  words, 
which  were  bald  and  broken,  though  by  awkwardness 
rather  than  emotion.  Then  Evan  asked,  as  it  were  in  his 
stride,  if  Jan's  mother's  people  had  a  "nice  place,"  and 
other  questions  which  might  have  betrayed  to  a  more  so- 
phisticated observer  a  wish  to  ascertain  whether  they  really 
were  gentlefolk  as  alleged.  Jan  answered  that  it  was  "a 
nice  enough  place";  but  he  pointed  to  a  photograph  in 
an  Oxford  frame — the  photograph  of  a  large  house  reflected 
in  a  little  artificial  lake — a  house  with  a  slate  roof  and  an 


60  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

ornamental  tower,  and  no  tree  higher  than  the  first-floor 
windows. 

"That's  a  nicer  place/*  said  Jan,  with  a  sigh. 

"  I  daresay,"  Evan  acquiesced,  with  cold  complacency. 

"There's  nothing  like  that  in  Norfolk,"  continued  Jan, 
with  perfect  truth.  "  Do  you  remember  the  first  time  you 
took  me  up  to  the  tower?" 

"I  can't  say  I  do." 

"What!  not  when  we  climbed  out  on  the  roof?" 

"I've  climbed  out  on  the  roof  so  often." 

"And  there's  our  cottage  chimney;  and  just  through 
that  gate  we  used  to  play  'snob'!" 

Evan  did  not  answer.  He  had  looked  at  his  watch, 
and  was  taking  down  some  books.  The  hint  was  not  to 
be  ignored. 

"Well,  I  only  came  to  say  it  wasn't  my  fault,"  said 
Jan.  "I  never  knew  they  were  going  to  send  me  to  the 
same  school  as  you,  or  they'd  have  had  a  job  to  get  me  to 
come." 

"  Why  ?  "  asked  Evan,  more  stifily  than  he  had  spoken 
yet.     "  I  shan't  interfere  with  you." 

"I'm  sure  you  won't!"  cried  Jan,  with  the  bitterness 
which  had  been  steadily  gathering  in  his  heart. 

"Then  what's  the  matter  with  you?  Do  you  think 
I'm  going  to  tell  the  whole  school  all  about  you  ? " 

Jan  felt  that  he  was  somehow  being  put  in  the  wrong; 
and  assisted  in  the  process  by  suddenly  becoming  his 
most  sullen  self. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  answered,  hanging  his  head. 

"You  don't  know!  Do  you  think  I'd  think  of  such  a 
thing?" 

"  I  think  a  good  many  would." 

"You  think  I  would?" 

"I  don't  say  that." 


BOY  TO  BOY  61 

"But  you  think  it?" 

Evan  pressed  him  hotly. 

"I  don't  think  anything;  and  I  don't  care  what  any- 
body thinks  of  me,  or  what  anybody  knows!"  cried  Jan, 
not  lying,  but  speaking  as  he  had  suddenly  begun  to  feel. 

"Then  I  don't  know  why  on  earth  you  came  to  me," 
said  Evan  scornfully. 

"No  more  do  I,"  muttered  Jan;  and  out  he  went  into 
the  quad,  and  crossed  it  with  a  flaming  face.  But  at  the 
further  side  he  turned.  Evan's  door  was  still  open,  as 
Jan  had  left  it,  but  Evan  had  not  come  out. 

Jan  found  him  standing  in  the  same  attitude,  with 
the  book  he  had  taken  down,  still  unopened  in  his  hand, 
and  a  troubled  frown  upon  his  face. 

"What's  the  matter  now?"  asked  Evan. 

"  I'm  sorry — Devereux! " 

"So  am  I." 

"  I  might  have  known  you  wouldn't  tell  a  soul." 

"  I  think  you  might," 

"And  of  course  I  don't  want  a  soul  to  know.  I 
thought  I  didn't  care  a  minute  ago.  But  I  do  care,  more 
than  enough." 

"Well,  no  one  shall  hear  from  me.  I  give  you  my 
word  about  that." 

"Thank  youl" 

Jan  was  holding  out  his  hand. 

"Oh,  that's  all  right." 

"Won't  you  shake  hands?" 

"  Oh,  with  pleasure,  if  you  like," 

But  the  grip  was  all  on  one  side. 


CHAPTER  VII 

REASSURANCE 

Jan  went  back  to  his  house  in  a  dull  glow  of  injury  and 
anger.  But  he  was  angriest  with  himself,  for  the  gratui- 
tous and  unwonted  warmth  with  which  he  had  grasped  an 
unresponsive  hand.  And  the  sense  of  injury  abated  with 
a  little  honest  reflection  upon  its  cause.  After  all,  with 
such  a  different  relationship  so  fresh  in  his  mind,  the 
Master  Evan  of  the  other  day  could  hardly  have  said 
more  than  he  had  said  this  afternoon;  in  any  case  he  could 
not  have  promised  more.  Jan  remembered  his  worst  fears; 
they  at  least  would  never  be  realised  now.  And  yet,  in 
youth,  to  escape  the  worst  is  but  to  start  sighing  for  the 
best.  Evan  might  be  loyal  enough.  But  would  he  ever 
be  a  friend?  Almost  in  his  stride  Jan  answered  his  own 
question  with  complete  candour  in  the  negative;  and 
having  faced  his  own  conclusion,  thanked  his  stars 
that  Evan  and  he  were  in  different  houses  and  different 
forms. 

Shockley  was  lounging  against  the  palings  outside  the 
door  leading  to  the  studies;  the  spot  appeared  to  be  his 
favourite  haunt.  It  was  an  excellent  place  for  joining  a 
crony  or  kicking  a  small  boy  as  he  passed.  Jan  was 
already  preparing  his  heart  for  submission  to  superior 
force,  and  his  person  for  any  violence,  when  Shockley 
greeted  him  with  quite  a  genial  smile. 

62 


REASSURANCE  63 

"Lot  o*  parcels  for  you,  Tiger,"  said  he.  "I'll  give 
you  a  hand  with  *em,  if  you  like." 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  mumbled  Jan,  quite  in  a 
flutter.     "  But  where  will  they  be  ?  " 

"  Where  will  they  be  ?  "  the  other  murmured  under  his 
breath.     "  I'll  show  you.  Tiger." 

Jan  could  not  help  suspecting  that  Carpenter  might  be 
right  after  all.  He  had  actually  done  himself  good  by  his 
display  of  spirit  in  the  quad!  Young  Petrie  had  been 
civil  to  him  within  an  hour,  and  here  was  Shockley  doing 
the  friendly  thing  before  the  afternoon  was  out.  He  had 
evidently  misjudged  Shockley;  he  tried  to  make  up  for  it 
by  thanking  him  nearly  all  the  way  to  the  hall,  which  was 
full  of  fellows  who  shouted  an  embarrassing  greeting  as 
the  pair  passed  the  windows.  They  did  not  go  into  the 
hall,  however,  but  stopped  at  the  slate  table  at  the  foot  of 
the  dormitory  stairs.  It  was  covered  with  parcels  of  all 
sizes,  on  several  of  which  Rutter  read  his  name. 

"Tolly-sticks — don't  drop  'em,"  said  Shockley,  hand- 
ing one  of  the  parcels.  "This  feels  like  your  table-cloth; 
that  must  be  tollies;  and  all  the  rest  are  books.  I'll  help 
you  carry  them  over." 

"I  can  manage,  thanks,"  said  Jan,  uncomfortably. 
But  Shockley  would  not  hear  of  his  "  managing,"  and  led 
the  way  back  past  the  windows,  an  ironical  shout  following 
them  into  the  quad. 

"You  should  have  had  the  lot  yesterday,"  continued 
Shockley  in  the  most  fatherly  fashion.  "I  should  com- 
plain to  Heriot,  if  I  were  you." 

Jan's  study  had  also  been  visited  in  his  absence.  A 
folding  chair,  tied  up  with  string,  stood  against  the  wall, 
with  billows  of  bright  green  creton  bulging  through  string 
and  woodwork;  an  absurd  bit  of  Brussels  carpet  covered 
every  inch  of  the  tiny  floor;  and  it  also  was  an  aggressive 


64  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

green,  though  of  another  and  a  still  more  startling 
shade. 

"Curtains  not  come  yet,"  observed  Shockley.  "I 
suppose  they're  to  be  green  too?" 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  Rutter.  "I  left  it  to 
them." 

"  I  rather  like  your  greens,"  said  Shockley,  opening  the 
long  soft  parcel.  "  Why,  you've  gone  and  got  a  red  table- 
cloth!" 

"  It's  their  doing,  not  mine,"  observed  Jan,  phlegmati- 
cally. 

"  I  wonder  you  don't  take  more  interest  in  your  study," 
said  Shockley.  "  Most  chaps  take  a  pride  in  theirs.  Red 
and  green!  It'll  spoil  the  whole  thing;  they  don't  go. 
Tiger." 

Jan  made  some  show  of  shaking  off  his  indifference  in 
the  face  of  this  kindly  interest  in  his  surroundings. 

"  They  might  change  it,  Shockley." 

"I  wouldn't  trust  'em,"  said  that  authority,  shaking 
and  scratching  a  bullet  head  by  turns.  "  They're  not  too 
obliging,  the  tradesmen  here — too  much  bloated  monopoly. 
If  you  take  my  advice  you'll  let  well  alone." 

"Then  I  will,"  said  Jan,  eagerly.  "Thanks,  awfully, 
Shockley!" 

"  Not  that  it  IS  well,"  resumed  Shockley,  as  though  the 
matter  worried  him.  "  A  green  table-cloth's  the  thing  for 
you,  Tiger,  and  a  green  table-cloth  you  must  have  if  we 
can  work  it." 

"  It's  very  good  of  you  to  bother,"  said  Jan,  devoutly 
wishing  he  would  not. 

Shockley  only  shook  his  head. 

"I've  got  one  myself,  you  see,"  he  explained  in  a 
reflective  voice,  as  he  examined  the  red  cloth  critically. 
"It's  a  better  thing  than  this — better  taste — and  green — 


REASSURANCE  65 

but  I'd  rather  do  a  swop  with  you  than  see  you  spoil  your 
study.  Tiger." 

**  Very  well,"  said  Jan,  doubtfully. 

Shockley  promptly  tucked  the  new  table-cloth  under 
his  arm.     "Let's  see  your  tolly-sticks!"  said  he,  briskly. 

"Tolly-sticks?" 

"Candle-sticks,  you  fool!" 

Jan  unpacked  them,  noting  as  he  did  so  that  the 
fatherly  tone  had  been  dropped. 

"  I  suppose  you  wouldn't  like  a  real  old  valuable  pair 
instead  of  these  meagre  things  ?  " 

"No,  thanks,  Shockley." 

"  Well,  anyhow  you  must  have  a  picture  or  two." 

"Why  must  I?"  asked  Jan.  He  had  suddenly 
remembered  Carpenter's  story  of  the  seven-and-sixpenny 
chair. 

"Because  I've  got  the  very  pair  for  you,  and  going 
cheap." 

"  I  see,"  said  Jan,  in  his  dryest  Yorkshire  voice. 

"Oh,  I  don't  care  whether  you've  a  study  or  a  sty!" 
cried  Shockley,  and  away  he  went  glaring,  but  with  the 
new  cloth  under  his  arm.  In  a  minute  he  was  back  with 
the  green  one  rolled  into  a  ball,  which  he  flung  in  Jan's 
face.  "There  you  are,  you  fool,  and  I'm  glad  you  like 
your  own  colour!"  he  jeered  as  he  slammed  the  door 
behind  him. 

Neither  had  Jan  much  mercy  on  himself,  when  he  had 
fitted  two  candles  into  the  two  new  china  sticks,  and  lit 
them  with  a  wax  match  from  the  shilling  box  included  in 
his  supplies.  Shockley's  table-cloth  might  once  have  been 
green,  but  long  service  had  reduced  it  to  a  more  dubious 
hue;  it  was  spotted  with  ink  and  candle-grease,  and  in  one 
place  cut  through  with  a  knife.  To  Jan,  indeed,  one 
table-cloth  was  like  another;    he  was  only  annoyed  to 


66  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

think  he  had  been  swindled  as  badly  as  Carpenter,  by 
the  same  impudent  impostor,  and  with  Carpenter's  ex- 
perience to  put  him  on  his  guard.  But  even  in  his  an- 
noyance the  incident  appealed  to  that  prematurely  grim 
sense  of  the  ironic  which  served  Jan  Rutter  for  the  fun 
and  nonsense  of  the  ordinary  boy;  and  on  the  whole  he 
thought  it  wiser  to  avoid  another  row  by  saying  no  more 
about  it. 

But  he  was  not  suffered  to  keep  his  resolution  to  the 
letter:  at  tea  Buggins  and  Eyre  major  were  obviously 
whispering  about  Jan  before  Buggins  asked  him  across  the 
table  how  he  liked  his  new  table-cloth. 

"I  suppose  you  mean  Shockley's  old  one?"  retorted 
Jan  at  once.  "It'll  do  all  right;  but  it's  a  good  bargain 
for  Shockley." 

"A  bargain's  a  bargain,"  remarked  Buggins  with  his 
mouth  full. 

"And  a  Jew's  a  Jew!"  said  Jan. 

The  nice  pair  glared  at  him,  and  glanced  at  Shockley, 
who  was  two  places  higher  up  than  Jan,  but  deep  in 
ingratiating  conversation  with  a  good-looking  fellow  on 
his  far  side. 

"God  help  you  when  the  Shocker  hears  that!" 
muttered  Buggins  under  his  breath. 

"  You'll  be  murdered  before  you've  been  here  a  week, 
you  brute!"  added  Eyre  Tnajor  with  a  titter. 

"I  may  be,"  said  Jan,  "but  not  by  you — you 
prize  pig!" 

And,  much  as  he  was  still  to  endure  from  the  trio  in 
his  form  and  house,  this  was  the  last  Jan  heard  directly 
of  the  matter.  Whether  his  reckless  words  ever  reached 
the  ears  of  Shockley,  or  whether  the  truth  was  in  them, 
Jan  never  knew.  As  a  good  hater,  however,  he  always  felt 
that  apart  from  thick  lips,  heavy  nostrils,  pale  eyes  and 


REASSURANCE  67 

straight  light  hair,  his  arch-enemy  combined  all  the  most 
objectionable  characteristics  of  Jew  and  Gentile. 

So  this  stormy  Saturday  came  to  a  comparatively  calm 
close,  and  Jan  was  left  to  wrestle  in  peace  with  a  Latin 
prose  set  by  Mr.  Haigh  at  second  school.  On  other  nights 
everybody  went  back  to  his  form-master  after  tea,  for  a 
bout  of  preparation  falsely  called  "private  work";  but 
on  Saturdays  some  kind  of  composition  was  set  through- 
out the  school,  was  laboriously  evolved  in  the  solitude  of 
the  study,  and  signed  by  the  house-master  after  prayers 
that  night  or  on  the  Sunday  morning.  Unfortunately,  com- 
position was  Jan's  weak  point.  By  the  dim  light  of  the 
dictionary,  with  the  frail  support  of  a  Latin  grammar,  he 
could  grope  his  way  through  a  page  of  Caesar  or  of  Virgil 
without  inevitably  plunging  to  perdition;  but  the  ability 
to  cast  English  back  into  Latin  implies  a  point  of  scholar- 
ship which  Jan  had  not  reached  by  all  the  forced  marches 
of  the  past  few  months.  He  grappled  with  his  prose  until 
head  and  hand  perspired  in  the  warm  September  evening. 
He  hunted  up  noun  after  noun  in  his  new  English-Latin, 
and  had  a  shot  at  case  after  case.  And  when  at  length 
his  fair  copy  was  food  for  Haigh's  blue  pencil,  and  Jan 
leant  back  to  survey  his  own  two  candles  and  his  own 
four  walls,  he  was  conscious,  in  the  first  place,  that  he  had 
been  taken  out  of  himself,  and  in  the  second  that  a  study 
to  oneself  was  a  mitigating  circumstance  in  school  life. 

Not  that  he  disliked  his  dormitory  either;  there, 
nothing  was  said  to  him  about  the  row  in  the  quad,  of 
which  in  fact  he  had  heard  very  little  since  it  occurred. 
He  was  embarrassed,  however,  by  a  command  from  Joyce 
to  tell  a  story  after  the  gas  was  out;  stories  were  not  at 
all  in  Jan's  line;  and  the  situation  was  only  relieved  by 
Bingley's  sporting  offer  to  stand  proxy  in  the  discharge  of 
what  appeared  to  be  a  traditional  debt  on  the  part  of  all 


68  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

new  boys  entering  that  house.  Bingley,  permitted  to 
officiate  as  a  stop-gap  only,  launched  with  much  gusto  and 
more  minutiae  into  a  really  able  account  of  a  revolting 
murder  committed  in  the  holidays.  Murders  proved  to 
be  Bingley's  strong  point;  his  face  would  glow  over  the 
less  savoury  portions  of  the  papers  in  hall;  and  that  night 
his  voice  was  still  vibrating  with  unctuous  horror  when 
Jan  got  off  to  sleep. 

The  school  Sunday  in  his  time  was  not  desecrated  by  a 
stroke  of  work;  breakfast  of  course  was  later,  and  Heriot 
himself  deliberately  late  for  prayers,  which  were  held  in 
the  houses  as  on  the  first  day  of  the  term,  instead  of  in 
the  big  school-room.  Chapel  seemed  to  monopolise  morn- 
ing and  afternoon.  Yet  there  was  time  for  a  long  walk 
after  either  chapel,  and  abundant  time  for  letter-writing 
after  dinner.  Not  that  Jan  availed  himself  of  the  oppor- 
tunity; he  had  already  posted  a  brief  despatch  to  the  rec- 
tory, and  nowhere  else  was  there  a  soul  who  could  possi- 
bly care  to  hear  from  him.  He  spent  the  latter  end  of  the 
morning  in  a  solitary  stroll  along  a  very  straight  country 
road,  and  the  hour  after  dinner  over  a  yellow-back  bor- 
rowed from  Chips. 

Morning  chapel  had  been  quite  a  revelation  to  Jan. 
He  had  been  forced  to  go  to  church  in  Norfolk;  he  went 
to  chapel  in  the  stoical  spirit  born  of  chastening 
experience.  Yet  there  was  something  in  the  very  ringing 
of  the  bells  that  might  have  prepared  him  for  brighter 
things;  they  were  like  joy-bells  in  their  almost  merry 
measure.  The  service  proved  bright  beyond  belief.  The 
chapel  itself  was  both  bright  and  beautiful.  It  was  full 
of  sunlight  and  fresh  air,  it  lacked  the  heavy  hues  and 
the  solemn  twilight  which  Jan  associated  with  a  place 
of  worship.  The  responses  came  with  a  hearty  and 
unanimous  ring.    The  psalms  were  the  quickest  thing 


REASSURANCE  69 

in  church  music  that  Jan  had  ever  heard;  they  went  with 
such  a  swing  that  he  found  himself  trying  to  sing  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life.  His  place  in  chapel  had  not  yet 
been  allotted  to  him,  and  he  stood  making  his  happily  in- 
audible effort  between  two  tail-coated  veterans  with 
stentorian  lungs.  Crowning  merit  of  the  morning  service, 
there  was  no  sermon;  but  in  the  afternoon  the  little  man 
with  the  imperious  air  grew  into  a  giant  in  his  marble 
pulpit,  and  impressed  Jan  so  powerfully  that  he  wondered 
again  how  the  fellows  could  call  him  Jerry,  until  he 
looked  round  and  saw  some  of  them  nodding  in  their 
chairs.  Then  he  found  that  he  had  lost  the  thread 
himself,  that  he  could  not  pick  it  up  again,  that  every- 
thing escaped  him  except  a  transfigured  face  and  a  voice 
both  stem  and  tender.  But  these  were  flag  and  bugle  to 
the  soldier  concealed  about  most  young  boys,  and  Jan 
for  one  came  out  of  chapel  at  quick  march. 

The  golden  autumn  day  was  still  almost  at  its  best, 
but  Jan  had  no  stomach  for  another  lonely  walk.  A 
really  lonely  walk  would  have  been  different;  but  to  go 
off  by  oneself,  and  to  meet  hundreds  in  sociable  twos  and 
threes,  with  linked  arms  and  wagging  tongues,  was  to  cut 
too  desolate  a  figure  before  the  world.  Carpenter 
apparently  had  found  a  friend;  at  least  Jan  saw  him 
obviously  waiting  for  one  after  chapel;  yet  hardly  had  he 
settled  to  his  novel,  than  a  listless  step  was  followed  by 
the  banging  of  the  study  door  next  his  own. 

"  I  thought  you'd  gone  for  a  walk,"  said  Jan,  when  he 
had  gained  admission  by  pounding  on  Carpenter's  door. 

"Did  you!    You  thought  wrong,  then." 

Carpenter  smiled  as  though  to  temper  an  ungracious- 
ness worthier  of  Jan,  but  the  effort  was  hardly  a  success. 
He  was  reclining  in  a  chair  with  a  leg-rest,  under  the 
window  opposite  the  door.    He  had  already  put  up  a 


70  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

number  of  pictures  and  brackets,  and  photograph  frames 
in  the  plush  of  that  period.  Everything  was  very  neat 
and  nice,  and  there  was  a  notable  absence  of  inharmonious 
or  obtrusive  shades. 

"How  on  earth  did  you  open  the  door  from  over 
there  ?  "  asked  Jan. 

"Lazy-pull,"  said  Carpenter,  showing  off  a  cord  run- 
ning round  three  little  walls  and  ending  in  a  tassel  at  his 
elbow.    "You  can  buy  'em  all  ready  at  Blunt's." 

"You  have  got  fettled  up,"  remarked  Jan,  "and  no 
mistake!" 

Carpenter  opened  his  eyes  at  the  uncouth  participle. 

"I  want  to  have  a  good  study,"  he  said.  "I've  one 
or  two  pictures  to  put  up  yet,  and  I've  a  good  mind  to  do 
them  now." 

"You  wouldn't  like  to  come  for  a  walk  instead?" 

The  suggestion  was  very  shyly  made,  and  as  candidly 
considered  by  Chips  Carpenter. 

"Shall  I?"  he  asked  himself  aloud. 

"You  might  as  well,"  said  Jan  without  pressing  it. 

"I'm  not  sure  that  I  mightn't." 

And  off  they  went,  but  not  with  linked  arms,  or  even 
very  close  together;  for  Chips  still  seemed  annoyed  at 
something  or  other,  and  for  once  not  in  a  mood  to  talk 
about  it  or  anything  else.  It  was  very  unlike  him;  and 
a  small  boy  is  not  unlike  himself  very  long.  They  took 
the  road  under  the  study  windows,  left  the  last  of  the 
little  town  behind  them,  dipped  into  a  wooded  hollow, 
and  followed  a  couple  far  ahead  over  a  stile  and  along  a 
right-of-way  through  the  fields;  and  in  the  fields,  bathed 
in  a  mellow  mist,  and  as  yet  but  thinly  dusted  with  the 
gold  of  autumn.  Carpenter  found  his  tongue.  He  ex- 
patiated on  this  new-found  freedom,  this  intoxicating 
licence  to  roam  where  one  would  within  bounds  of  time 


REASSURANCE  71 

alone,  a  peculiar  boon  to  the  boy  from  a  private  school, 
and  one  that  Jan  appreciated  as  highly  as  his  companion. 
It  was  not  the  only  thing  they  agreed  about  that  first 
Sunday  afternoon.  Jan  was  in  a  much  less  pugnacious 
mood  than  usual,  and  Carpenter  less  ponderously  im- 
pressed with  every  phase  of  their  new  life.  They  ex- 
changed some  prejudices,  and  compared  a  good  many 
notes,  as  they  strolled  from  stile  to  stile.  Haigh  came  in 
for  some  sharp  criticism  from  his  two  new  boys;  the  un- 
certainty of  his  temper  was  already  apparent  to  them; 
but  Heriot,  as  yet  a  marked  contrast  in  that  respect,  hardly 
figured  in  the  conversation  at  all.  A  stray  remark,  how- 
ever, elicit^  the  fact  that  Carpenter,  who  had  disap- 
peared in  the  morning  directly  after  prayers,  had  actually 
been  to  breakfast  with  Heriot  on  the  first  Sunday  of  his 
first  term. 

Jan  was  not  jealous;  from  his  primitive  point  of 
view  the  master  was  the  natural  enemy  of  the  boy;  and 
he  was  not  at  the  time  surprised  when  Carpenter  dis- 
missed the  incident  as  briefly  as  though  he  were  rather 
ashamed  of  it.  He  would  have  thought  no  more  of  the 
matter  but  for  a  chance  encounter  as  they  crossed  their 
last  stile  and  came  back  into  the  main  road. 

Swinging  down  the  middle  of  the  road  came  a  trio 
arm-in-arm,  full  of  noisy  talk,  and  so  hilarious  that  both 
boys  recognised  Evan  Devereux  by  his  laugh  before  they 
saw  his  face.  Evan,  on  his  side,  must  have  been  almost 
as  quick  to  recognise  Carpenter,  who  was  first  across 
the  stile,  for  he  at  once  broke  away  from  his  companions. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry!"  he  cried.  "I  quite  forgot  I'd 
promised  these  fellows  when  I  promised  you." 

"  It  doesn't  matter  a  bit,"  said  Carpenter,  in  a  rather 
unconvincing  voice. 

"You  didn't  go  waiting  about  for  me,  did  you?" 


72  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"  Not  long,"  replied  Carpenter,  dryly. 

"Well,  I  really  am  awfully  sorry;  but,  you  see,  I'd 
promised  these  men  at  the  end  of  last  term,  and  I  quite 
forgot  about  it  this  morning  at  Heriot's." 

"I  see." 

"  I  won't  do  it  again,  I  swear." 

"You  won't  get  the  chance!'*  muttered  Carpenter, 
as  Devereux  ran  after  his  companions.  He  looked  at 
his  watch,  and  turned  to  Jan.  "There's  plenty  of  time, 
Rutter.    Which  way  shall  we  go?" 

Jan  came  out  of  the  shadow  of  the  hedge;  he  had 
remained  instinctively  in  the  background,  and  had  no 
reason  to  think  that  Evan  had  seen  him.  Certainly  their 
eyes  had  never  met.  And  yet  there  had  been  something 
in  Evan's  manner,  something  pointed  in  his  fixed  way  of 
looking  at  Carpenter  and  not  beyond  him,  something  that 
might  have  left  a  doubt  in  Jan's  mind  if  a  greater  doubt 
had  not  already  possessed  it. 

"Which  way  shall  we  turn?"  Carpenter  repeated  as 
Jan  stood  looking  at  him  strangely. 

"Neither  way,  just  yet  a  bit,"  said  Jan,  darkly.  "I 
want  to  ask  you  something  first." 

"  Right  you  are." 

"There  are  not  so  many  here  that  you  could  say  it  for, 
so  far  as  I  can  see,"  continued  Jan,  the  inscrutable: 
"but  from  what  I've  seen  of  you,  Carpenter,  I  don't 
believe  you'd  tell  me  a  lie." 

"  I'd  try  not  to,"  said  the  other,  smiling,  yet  no  easier 
than  Jan  in  his  general  manner. 

"That's  good  enough  for  me,"  said  Jan.  "So  what 
did  Devereux  mean  just  now  by  talking  about  'this 
morning  at  Heriot's'?" 

"Oh,  he  had  breakfast  with  Heriot,  too;  didn't  I 
teUyou?" 


REASSURANCE  73 

"No;  you  didn't." 

"Well,  I  never  supposed  it  would  interest  you." 

"Although  I  told  you  I  knew  something  about  him 
at  home!" 

The  two  were  facing  each  other,  eye  to  eye.  Those  of 
Jan  were  filled  with  a  furious  suspicion. 

"I  wonder  you  didn't  speak  to  him  just  now," 
remarked  Carpenter,  looking  at  his  nails. 

"He  never  saw  me;  besides,  I'd  gone  and  said  all  I'd 
got  to  say  to  him  yesterday  in  his  study." 

"I  see." 

"Didn't  Devereux  tell  you  I'd  been  to  see  him?" 

"  Oh,  I  think  he  said  he'd  seen  you,  but  that  was  all." 

"At  breakfast  this  morning?" 

"Yes." 

"Did  Heriot  ask  him  anything  about  me?** 

"No." 

"Has  he  told  you  anything  about  me  at  home. 
Chips?" 

"Hardly  anything." 

"How  much?" 

"Only  that  he  hardly  knew  you;  that  was  all," 
declared  Carpenter,  looking  Jan  in  the  face  once  more. 
"And  I  must  say  I  don't  see  what  you're  driving  at, 
Rutterl" 

"You'd  better  go  and  ask  Devereux,"  said  Jan,  un- 
worthily; but,  as  luck  would  have  it,  he  could  not  have 
diverted  his  companion's  thoughts  more  speedily  if  he 
had  tried. 

"Devereux?  I  don't  go  near  him!"  he  cried.  "He 
promised  to  wait  for  me  after  chapel,  and  he  cut  me  for 
those  fellows  we  saw  him  with  just  now." 

"Although  you  were  friends  at  the  same  private 
school?" 


74  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"If  you  call  that  friendship!  He  never  wrote  to  me 
all  last  term,  though  I  wrote  twice  to  him!" 

"  I  suppose  that  would  be  why  Heriot  asked  you  both 
to  breakfast,"  said  Jan,  very  thoughtfully,  as  they  began 
walking  back  together.  "I  mean,  you  both  coming  from 
the  same  school." 

"What?    Oh,  yes,  of  course  it  was." 

Jan  threw  one  narrow  look  over  his  shoulder. 

"  Of  course  it  was!"  he  agreed,  and  walked  on  nodding 
to  himself. 

"But  he  didn't  know  Evan  Devereux,  or  he'd  have 
known  that  an  old  friend  was  nothing  to  him!" 

"I  wouldn't  be  too  sure,"  said  Jan  with  gentle 
warmth.    "I  wouldn't  be  too  sure,  if  I  were  you." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LIKES   AND  DISLIKES 

By  the  beginning  of  October  there  was  a  bite  in  the  air, 
and  either  fives  or  football  every  afternoon;  and  before 
the  middle  of  the  month  Jan  began  now  and  then  to  feel 
there  might  be  worse  places  than  a  public  school.  He  had 
leamt  his  way  about.  He  could  put  a  name  to  all  his 
house  and  form.  He  was  no  longer  strange;  and  on  the 
whole  he  might  have  disliked  things  more  than  he  did. 
There  was  much  that  he  did  dislike,  instinctively  and 
individually;  but  there  was  a  good  deal  that  he  could  not 
help  enjoying,  over  and  above  the  football  and  the  fives. 
There  was  the  complete  freedom  out  of  school,  the  complete 
privacy  of  the  separate  study,  above  all  the  amazing 
absence  of  anything  in  the  way  of  espionage  by  the 
masters.  These  were  all  surprises  to  Jan;  but  they  were 
counterbalanced  by  some  others,  such  as  the  despotic 
powers  of  the  praepostors,  which  only  revived  the  spirit  of 
sensitive  antagonism  in  which  he  had  come  to  school. 
The  praepostors  wore  straw  hats,  had  fags,  and  wielded 
hunting-crops  to  keep  the  line  at  football  matches.  This 
was  a  thing  that  made  Jan's  blood  boil;  he  marvelled 
that  no  one  else  seemed  to  take  it  as  an  indignity,  or  to 
resent  the  authority  of  these  praepostors  as  he  did.  Then 
there  were  boys  like  Shockley  whom  he  could  cheerfully 
have  attended  on  the  scaffold.  And  there  was  one  man 
he  very  soon  detested  more  than  any  boy. 

75 


76  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

That  man  was  Mr.  Haigh,  the  master  of  the  Middle 
Remove;  and  Jan's  view  of  him  was  perhaps  no  fairer 
than  his  treatment  of  Jan.  Haigh,  when  not  passing 
more  or  less  unworthy  pleasantries,  and  laughing  a  great 
deal  at  very  little  indeed,  was  a  serious  and  even  passionate 
scholar.  He  had  all  the  gifts  of  his  profession  except 
coolness  and  a  right  judgment  of  boys.  His  enthusiasm 
was  splendid.  The  willing  dullard  caught  fire  in  his  form. 
The  gifted  idler  was  obliged  to  work  for  Haigh.  He  had 
hammered  knowledge  into  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
boys;  but  here  was  one  who  would  get  up  and  wring  the 
sense  out  of  a  page  of  Virgil,  and  then  calmly  ask  Haigh 
to  believe  him  incapable  of  parsing  a  passage  or  of 
scanning  a  line  of  that  page!  Of  course  Haigh  believed 
no  such  thing,  and  of  course  Jan  would  vouchsafe  no 
explanation  of  his  inconceivable  deficiencies.  Pressed  for 
one,  indeed,  or  on  any  other  point  arising  from  his  out- 
rageously unequal  equipment,  Jan  invariably  sulked,  and 
Haigh  invariably  lost  his  temper  and  called  Jan  elaborate 
names.  The  more  offensive  they  were,  the  better  care  Jan 
took  to  earn  them.  Sulky  he  was  inclined  to  be  by 
nature;  sulkier  he  made  himself  when  he  found  that  it 
exasperated  Haigh  more  than  the  original  offence. 

Loder,  the  captain  of  his  house,  was  another  object  of 
Jan's  dislike.  Loder  was  not  only  a  praepostor,  who 
lashed  your  legs  in  public  with  a  hunting-crop,  but  he  was 
generally  accounted  a  bit  of  a  prig  and  a  weakling  into 
the  bargain,  and  Jan  thought  he  deserved  his  reputation. 
Loder  had  a  great  notion  of  keeping  order  in  the  house, 
but  his  actual  tactics  were  to  pounce  upon  friendless 
wretches  like  Chips  or  Jan,  and  not  to  interfere  with  stal- 
warts of  the  Shockley  gang,  or  even  with  popular  small 
boys  like  young  Petrie.  Nor  was  it  necessary  for  Jan  to 
be  caught  out  of  his  study  after  lock-up,  or  throwing  stones 


LIKES  AND  DISLIKES  77 

in  the  quad,  in  order  to  incur  the  noisy  displeasure  of  the 
captain  of  the  house.  Loder  heard  of  the  daily  trouble 
with  Haigh;  it  was  all  over  the  house,  thanks  to 
Shockley  &  Co.,  whose  lurid  tales  had  the  unforeseen 
effect  of  provoking  a  certain  admiration  for  "  the  new  man 
who  didn't  mind  riling  old  Haigh."  Indifference  on  such 
a  point  implied  the  courage  of  the  matador — to  all  who 
had  been  gored  aforetime  in  the  Middle  Remove — save 
and  except  the  serious  Loder.  Passing  Jan's  door  one 
day,  this  exemplary  praepostor  looked  in  to  tell  him  he 
was  disgracing  the  house,  and  stayed  to  inquire  what  on 
earth  he  meant  by  having  such  a  filthy  study.  The 
epithet  was  inexact;  but  certainly  the  study  was  ankle- 
deep  in  books  and  papers,  with  bare  walls  still  bristiing 
with  the  last  tenant's  nails;  and  it  was  not  improved  by 
a  haunting  smell  of  sulphur  and  tallow,  due  to  the  recent 
firing  of  the  shilling  box  of  wax  matches. 

"It  says  nothing  about  untidy  studies  in  the  School 
Rules,'*  said  Jan,  tilting  his  chair  back  from  his  table,  and 
glowering  at  his  interrupted  imposition. 

"Don't  you  give  me  any  cheek!"  cried  Loder,  looking 
dangerous  for  hhn. 

"  But  it  does  say,"  continued  Jan,  quoting  a  character- 
istic canon  with  grim  deliberation,  "that  'a  boy's  study 
is  his  castle,'  Loder!" 

Jan  had  to  pick  himself  up,  and  then  his  chair,  with 
an  ear  that  tingled  no  more  than  Jan  deserved.  But  this 
was  not  one  of  the  events  that  rankled  in  his  mind.  He 
had  made  a  swaggering  praepostor  look  the  fool  he  was; 
no  smack  on  the  head  could  rob  him  of  the  recollection. 

With  such  a  temper  it  is  no  wonder  that  Jan  remained 
practically  friendless.  Yet  he  might  have  made  friends 
among  the  smaller  fry  below  him  in  the  house;  and  there 
was  one  unathletic  boy  of  almost  his  own  age,  but  really 


78  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

high  up  in  the  school,  whose  advances  were  summarily 
repulsed  because  they  appeared  to  Jan  to  betray  some 
curiosity  about  his  people  and  his  home.  It  was  only 
human  that  the  lad  should  be  far  too  suspicious  on  all 
such  points;  the  pity  was  that  this  often  made  him  more 
forbidding  and  hostile  in  his  manner  than  he  was  at  heart. 
But  in  all  his  aversions  and  suspicions  there  was  no  longer 
a  hard  or  a  distrustful  thought  of  Evan  Devereux,  though 
Jan  and  he  had  not  spoken  since  that  first  Saturday,  and 
though  they  often  met  upon  the  hill  or  in  the  street 
without  exchanging  look  or  nod. 

Otherwise  his  likes  were  not  so  strong  as  his  dislikes, 
or  at  any  rate  not  so  ready;  and  yet  in  his  heart  even  Jan 
soon  found  himself  admiring  a  number  of  fellows  to  whom 
he  never  dreamt  of  speaking  before  they  spoke  to  him. 
Head  and  chief  of  these  was  Cave  major,  who  was  already 
in  the  Eleven,  and  who  got  his  football  colours  after  the 
first  match.  How  the  whole  house  clapped  him  in  hall 
that  night  at  tea!  The  only  notice  he  had  ever  taken  of 
Jan  was  to  relieve  him  of  Carpenter's  yellow-back  novel, 
which  the  great  man  read  and  passed  on  to  another 
member  of  the  Fifteen  in  another  house.  To  the  owner 
of  the  book  that  honour  was  sufficient  solace;  but  neither 
new  boy  had  ever  encountered  quite  so  heroic  a  figure  as 
the  great  Charles  Cave.  Then  there  was  Sprawson — 
Mother  Sprawson,  to  Cave  and  Loder — reputed  a  tremen- 
dous runner,  but  seen  to  be  several  things  besides.  Spraw- 
son amused  Jan  immensely  by  carrying  an  empty  spirit- 
flask  in  his  pocket,  and  sometimes  behaving  as  though  he 
had  just  emptied  it;  he  was  rather  a  bully,  but  more  of  a 
humorist,  who  would  administer  a  whole  box  of  pills  pre- 
scribed for  himself  to  some  unfortunate  urchin  in  no  need 
of  them;  and  yet  when  he  drew  Jan  in  the  house  fives, 
and  was  consequently  knocked  out  in  the  first  round,  no- 


LIKES  AND  DISLIKES  79 

body  could  have  taken  a  defeat  or  treated  a  partner  bet- 
ter. Then  there  were  Stratten  and  Jellicoe.  Stratten 
seemed  a  very  perfect  gentleman,  and  Jellicoe  a  distinct 
though  fiery  one;  they  were  always  about  arm-in-arm  to- 
gether, or  playing  fives  on  the  inner  court;  and  Jan  en- 
joyed watching  them  when  he  could  not  get  a  game  him- 
self on  the  outer.  At  closer  range  he  developed  a  more 
intimate  appreciation  of  Joyce,  with  his  bad  language  and 
his  good  heart,  and  of  Bingley  and  his  joyous  interest  in 
violent  crime. 

As  for  old  Bob  Heriot,  he  completely  upset  all  Jan's 
ideas  about  schoolmasters.  He  was  never  in  the  least 
angry,  yet  even  Cave  major  looked  less  dashing  in  his 
presence,  and  the  likes  of  Shockley  ludicrously  small. 
Not  that  his  house  saw  too  much  of  Heriot.  He  was  not 
the  kind  of  master  who  is  continually  in  and  out  of  his 
own  quad.  His  sway  was  felt  rather  than  enforced. 
But  he  had  a  brisk  and  cheery  word  with  the  flower  of  the 
house  most  nights  after  prayers,  and  somehow  Jan  and 
others  of  his  size  generally  lingered  in  the  background  to 
hear  what  he  had  to  say;  he  never  embarrassed  them  by 
taking  too  Auch  notice  of  them  before  their  betters,  and 
seldom  chilled  them  by  taking  none  at  all.  The  Shockley 
fraternity,  however,  had  not  a  good  word  to  say  for  poor 
Mr.  Heriot.  And  that  was  not  the  least  of  his  merits  in 
Jan's  eyes. 

On  Sunday  evenings  between  tea  and  prayers  it  was 
Heriot's  practice  to  make  a  round  of  the  studies,  staying 
for  a  few  minutes'  chat  in  each;  and  on  the  second  Sun- 
day of  the  term  he  gave  Jan  rather  more  than  his  time 
allowance.  But  he  seemed  to  notice  neither  the  stark  ug- 
liness of  the  uncovered  walls,  nor  the  heavy  fall  of  waste 
paper;  and  though  he  did  speak  of  Jan's  difficulties  in 
form,  he  treated  them  also  in  a  very  different  manner 


80  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

from  that  employed  by  the  captain  of  his  house.  The 
truth  was  that  Haigh  had  said  a  good  deal  about  the 
matter  to  Heriot,  and  Heriot  very  little  to  Haigh,  whose 
tongue  was  as  intemperate  out  of  school  as  it  was  in  form. 
But  to  Jan  he  spoke  plainly  on  this  second  Sunday 
evening  of  the  term. 

"It's  obvious  that  you  were  placed  a  form  too  high. 
Such  mistakes  will  occur;  there's  no  way  of  avoiding 
them  altogether;  the  question  is,  shall  we  try  to  rectify 
this  one?  It's  rather  late  in  the  day,  but  I've  known  it 
done;  the  Head  Master  might  allow  it  again.  It  would 
rest  with  him,  so  you  had  better  not  speak  of  it  for  the 
present.  I  mean,  of  course,  that  he  might  allow  you  to 
come  down  to  Mr.  Walrond's  form,  or  even  into  mine." 

At  which  Jan  displayed  some  momentary  excitement, 
and  then  sat  stolidly  embarrassed. 

"It  would  be  a  desperate  remedy,  Rutter;  it  would 
mean  your  being  a  fag,  after  first  escaping  fagging 
altogether;  in  fact,  it  would  be  starting  all  over  again.  I 
don't  say  it  wouldn't  make  your  work  easier  for  you 
during  the  whole  time  you're  here.  But  I  shall  quite 
understand  it  if  you  prefer  the  evils  that  you  know." 

"It  isn't  the  fagging.  It  isn't  that  I  shouldn't  like 
being  in  your  form,  sir,"  Jan  blurted  out.  "  But  I  don't 
want  to  run  away  from  Mr.  Haigh!"  he  mumbled  through 
his  teeth. 

"Well,  you'd  only  have  to  fight  another  day,  if  you 
did,"  said  Heriot,  with  a  laugh.  And  so  the  matter  went 
no  further;  and  not  another  boy  or  master  in  the  school 
ever  knew  that  it  had  gone  so  far. 

But  the  being  of  whom  Jan  saw  most,  and  the  only 
one  to  whom  he  spoke  his  odd  mind  freely,  was  the  other 
new  man.  Carpenter,  now  Chips  to  all  the  house.  And 
Chips  was  anotiier  oddity  in  his  way;  but  it  was  not  Jan's 


LIKES  AND  DISLIKES  81 

way  at  any  single  point.  Chips  had  always  been  intended 
for  a  public  school.  But  in  some  respects  he  was  far  less 
fit  for  one  than  Jan,  To  be  at  this  school  was  to  realise 
the  dream  of  his  life;  but  it  was  not  the  dream  that  it 
had  been  before  it  came  true,  and  the  dreamer  took  this 
extraordinary  circumstance  to  heart,  though  he  had  the 
character  to  keep  it  to  himself.  Jan  was  the  last  person 
to  whom  he  would  have  admitted  it;  he  still  stood  up 
for  the  school  in  all  their  talks,  and  gloried  in  being 
where  he  was;  but  it  was  none  the  less  obvious  that  he 
was  not  so  happy  as  he  tried  to  appear. 

Chips's  troubles,  to  be  sure,  were  not  in  form;  they 
were  almost  entirely  out  of  school,  just  where  Jan  got  on 
best.  Chips's  skin  was  thinner;  the  least  taunt  hurt  his 
feelings,  and  he  hid  them  less  successfully  than  Jan  could 
hide  his.  He  was  altogether  more  squeamish;  lying  and 
low  talk  were  equally  abhorrent  to  him;  he  would  not 
smile,  and  had  the  courage  to  confess  his  repugnance  under 
pressure,  but  not  the  force  of  personality  to  render  a  protest 
other  than  ineffectual.  Such  things  ran  like  water  from 
off  Jan's  broader  back;  he  was  not  particularly  attracted 
or  repelled. 

One  bad  half-hour  that  the  pair  spent  together  almost 
daily  was  that  between  breakfast  and  second  school.  It 
was  the  recognised  custom  for  fellows  in  the  same  house 
and  form  to  prepare  their  construe  together;  this  took 
Carpenter  and  Rutter  most  mornings  into  Shockley's  study, 
where  Buggins  and  Eyre  major  completed  the  symposium. 
On  a  Virgil  morning  there  would  be  interludes  in  which 
poor  Chips  felt  himself  a  worm  for  sitting  still;  even 
when  Thucydides  claimed  closer  attention  there  was  a  lot 
of  parenthetical  swearing.  But  Chips — whose  Greek  was 
his  weak  point — endured  it  all  as  long  as  the  work  itself 
was  fairly  done. 


82  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

One  morning,  however,  as  Jan  was  about  to  join  the 
rest.  Chips  burst  in  upon  him,  out  of  breath,  and  stood 
with  his  back  to  Jan's  bare  wall. 

"They've  gone  and  got  a  crib!"  he  gasped. 

"What  of?" 

"Thicksides." 

"And  a  jolly  good  job!"  said  Jan. 

Chips  looked  as  though  he  distrusted  his  eara. 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  you'll  use  it,  Tiger?" 

"Why  not?" 

"It's  so — at  least  I  mean  it  seems  to  me — so  jolly 
unfair!" 

Chips  had  stronger  epithets  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue; 
but  that  of  "pi"  had  been  freely  applied  to  himself;  and 
it  rankled  in  spite  of  all  his  principles. 

"  Not  so  unfair  as  sending  you  to  hole  like  this  against 
your  will,"  retorted  Jan,  "  and  putting  you  two  forms  too 
high  when  you  get  here." 

"That's  another  thing,"  said  Chips,  for  once  without 
standing  up  for  the  "  hole,"  perhaps  because  he  knew  that 
Jan  had  called  it  one  for  his  benefit. 

"No;  it's  all  the  same  thing.  Is  that  beast  Haigh 
fair  to  me?" 

"I  don't  say  he  is " 

"Then  I'm  blowed  if  I  see  why  I  should  be  fair  to 
him." 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  Haigh,"  said  Chips.  "I  was 
thinking  of  the  rest  of  the  form  who  don't  use  a  crib. 
Tiger." 

"That's  their  look-out,"  said  the  Tiger,  opening  his 
door  with  the  little  red  volume  of  Thucydides  in  his  other 
hand. 

"Then  you're  going  to  Shockley's  study  just  the 
same?" 


LIKES  AND  DISLIKES  83 

"Rather!    Aren't  you?" 

"  I've  been.    I  came  out  again." 

"Because  of  the  crib?" 

"Yes." 

"Did  you  tell  them  so,  Chips?" 

"I  had  to;  and — and  of  course  they  heaved  me  out. 
Tiger!  And  I'll  never  do  another  line  with  the 
brutes!" 

He  turned  away;  he  was  quite  husky.  Jan  watched 
him  with  a  shrug  and  a  groan,  hesitated,  and  then 
slammed  his  door. 

"Aren't  you  going,  Tiger?"  cried  Chips,  face  about  at 
the  sound.  "Don't  mind  me,  you  know!  I  can  sweat 
it  out  by  myself." 

"  Well  you're  not  going  to,"  growled  Jan,  flinging  the 
little  red  book  upon  the  table.  "I'd  rather  work  with 
an  old  ass  like  you.  Chips,  than  a  great  brute  like 
Shockley!" 

So  that  alliance  was  cemented,  and  Chips  at  any  rate 
was  Jan's  friend  for  life.  But  Jan  was  slower  to  re- 
ciprocate so  strong  a  feeling;  his  nature  was  much  less 
demonstrative  and  emotional;  moreover,  the  term  he  had 
applied  to  Carpenter  was  by  no  means  one  of  mere 
endearment.  There  was  in  fact  a  good  deal  about  Chips 
that  appealed  to  Jan  as  little  as  to  the  other  small  boys 
in  the  house.  He  was  indubitably  "pi";  he  thought  too 
much  of  his  study;  he  took  in  all  kinds  of  magazines, 
and  went  in  for  the  competitions,  being  mad  about  many 
things  including  cricket,  but  no  earthly  good  at  fives,  and 
not  allowed  to  play  football.  He  had  some  bronchial 
affection  that  prevented  him  from  running,  and  often 
kept  him  out  of  first  school.  "Sloper"  and  "sham" 
were  neither  of  them  quite  the  name  for  him;  but  both 
became  unpleasantly  familiar  in  the  ears  of  Carpenter 


84  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

during  the  first  half  of  his  first  term;  and  there  was  just 
enough  excuse  for  them  to  keep  such  a  lusty  specimen  as 
Jan  rather  out  of  sympathy  with  a  fellow  who  neither 
got  up  in  the  morning  nor  played  games  like  everybody 
else. 

Nevertheless,  they  could  hardly  have  seen  more  of 
each  other  than  they  did.  They  went  up  and  down  the 
hill  together,  for  Chips  was  always  at  Jan's  elbow  after 
school,  and  never  sooner  than  when  Jan  had  made  a 
special  fool  of  himself  in  form.  Chips  was  as  little  to  be 
deterred  by  the  gibes  of  the  rest  on  the  way  back,  as  by  the 
sullen  silence  in  which  the  Tiger  treated  his  loyalty  and 
their  scorn.  If  Rutter  had  recovered  tone  enough  to  play 
fives  after  twelve.  Carpenter  was  certain  to  be  seen 
looking  over  the  back  wall;  and  as  sure  as  Jan  went  up 
to  football  in  the  afternoon,  Chips  went  with  him  in  his 
top-coat,  and  followed  the  game  wistfully  at  a  distance. 
Down  they  would  come  together  when  the  game  was 
over,  as  twilight  settled  on  the  long  stone  street,  and 
tired  players  shod  in  mud  tramped  heavily  along  either 
pavement.  Now  was  Chips's  chance  for  the  daily  papers 
before  the  roaring  fire  in  hall,  while  Jan  changed  with  the 
rest  in  the  lavatory;  and  as  long  as  either  had  a  tizzy 
there  was  just  time  for  cocoa  and  buns  at  the  nearest 
confectioner's  before  third  school. 

The  nearest  confectioner's  was  not  the  fashionable 
school  resort,  but  it  was  quite  good  enough  for  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  lower  forms.  The  cocoa  was  coarse  and  thick, 
and  the  buns  not  always  fresh;  but  the  boys  had  dined  at 
half-past  one;  tea  in  hall  was  not  till  half-past  six;  and 
even  then  there  was  only  bread-and-butter  to  eat  unless  a 
fellow  had  his  own  supplies.  Jan  had  not  been  provided 
with  a  hamper  at  the  beginning  of  the  term,  or  with  very 
many  shillings  by  way  of  pocket-money;  he  would  have 


LIKES  AND  DISLIKES  85 

starved  rather  than  write  for  either,  for  it  was  seldom 
enough  that  he  received  so  much  as  a  letter  from  his  new 
home.  But  it  did  strike  him  as  a  strange  thing  that  a 
public-school  boy  should  habitually  go  hungrier  to  bed 
than  a  coachman's  son  at  work  about  his  father's 
stables. 

Milk  and  "dog-rocks"  were  indeed  provided  last 
thing  at  night  and  first  thing  in  the  morning;  but  if  you 
chose  to  get  up  late  there  was  hardly  time  for  a  mouthful 
as  you  sped  out  of  the  quad  and  along  the  street  to 
prayers,  buttoning  your  waistcoat  as  you  ran.  This  was 
not  often  Jan's  case,  but  it  was  on  the  morning  after 
the  match  between  his  house  and  another  in  the  first 
round  of  the  Under  Sixteen.  Heriot's  had  won  an  ex- 
citing game,  and  Jan  was  conscious  of  having  done  his 
share  in  the  bully.  He  was  distinctly  muscular  for  his 
age,  and  had  grown  perceptibly  in  even  these  few  weeks 
at  school.  His  sleep  was  haunted  by  an  intoxicating  roar 
of  "Reds!"  (his  side's  colour  for  the  nonce)  and  stinging 
counter  cries  of  "Whites!"  Once  at  least  he  had  actually 
heard  his  own  nickname  shouted  in  approval  by  some 
big  fellow  of  his  house;  and  he  heard  it  all  again  as  he 
dressed  and  dashed  out,  on  a  particularly  empty  stomach, 
into  a  dark  and  misty  morning,  with  the  last  bell  flagging 
as  if  it  must  stop  with  every  stroke;  he  heard  it  above 
his  own  palpitations  all  through  prayers;  on  his  knees  he 
was  down  in  another  bully,  smelling  the  muddy  ball, 
thirsting  to  feel  it  at  his  feet  again. 

It  chanced  to  be  a  mathematical  morning,  and  Jan  felt 
thankful  as  he  went  his  way  after  prayers;  for  he  was 
not  in  Haigh's  mathematical,  but  in  the  Spook's;  and 
the  Spook  was  a  peculiarly  innocuous  master,  who  had 
a  class-room  in  his  quarters  in  the  town,  but  not  a 
house. 


86  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"The  Thirteenth  Proposition  of  the  First  Book  of 
Euclid,"  sighed  the  Spook,  exactly  as  though  he  were 
giving  out  a  text  in  Chapel.  "  Many  of  you  seem  to  have 
found  so  much  diflBculty  over  this  that  I  propose  to  run 
over  it  again,  if  you  will  kindly  hold  your  tongues. 
Hold  your  tongue,  Kingdon!  Another  word  from  yoUy 
Pedley,  and  you'll  have  whipping  in  front  of  you — or 
rather  behind  you ! " 

The  little  joke  was  a  stock  felicity  of  the  Spook's,  and 
it  was  received  in  the  usual  fashion.  At  first  there  was 
a  little  titter,  but  nothing  more  until  the  Spook  himself 
was  seen  to  wear  a  sickly  smile;  thereupon  the  titter 
grew  into  a  roar,  and  the  roar  rose  into  a  bellow,  and  the 
bellow  into  one  prolonged  and  insolent  guffaw  which  the 
cadaverous  but  smiling  Spook  seemed  to  enjoy  as  much 
as  the  smallest  boy  in  his  mathematical.  Jan  alone  did 
not  join  in  the  derisive  chorus;  to  him  it  sounded  almost 
as  though  it  were  in  another  room;  and  the  figure  of  the 
Spook,  standing  before  his  blackboard,  holding  up  a  piece 
of  chalk  for  silence,  had  become  a  strangely  nebulous  and 
wavering  figure. 

"'The  angles  that  one  straight  line  makes  with  another 
straight  line,'"  began  the  Spook  at  last,  in  a  voice  that 
Jancouldhardly  hear,  "'are  together  equal  .  .  .  together 
equal  .  .  .  together  equal  .  .  .'" 

Jan  wondered  how  many  more  times  he  was  to  hear 
those  two  words;  his  head  swam  with  them;  the  Spook 
had  paused,  and  was  staring  at  him  with  fixed  eyes  and 
open  mouth;  and  yet  the  words  went  on  ringing  in  the 
swimming  head,  fainter  and  fainter,  and  further  and 
further  away,  as  Jan  fell  headlong  into  the  unfathomable 
pit  of  insensibility. 

He  came  to  earth  and  life  on  a  dilapidated  couch  in 
the  Spook's  study,  where  the  Spook  himself  was  in  the 


LIKES  AND  DISLIKES  87 

act  of  laying  him  down,  and  of  muttering  in  sepulchral 
tones,  "A  little  faint,  I  fearl" 

Jan  had  never  fainted  before,  and  in  his  heart  he  was 
rather  proud  of  the  achievement;  but  he  was  thankful 
that  he  had  chosen  the  one  first  school  of  the  week  that 
was  given  over  to  mathematics.  He  would  have  been 
very  sorry  to  have  come  to  himself  in  the  arms  of  Haigh. 
The  Spook  was  a  man  who  had  obviously  mistaken  his 
vocation;  but  it  w^as  least  obvious  when  mere  kindness 
and  goodness  were  required  of  him.  Jan  was  detained  in 
his  study  half  the  morning,  and  regaled  with  tea  and 
toast  and  things  to  read.  Heriot  also  looked  in  before 
second  school,  but  was  rather  brusque  and  unsympathetic 
(after  the  Spook)  until  Jan  ventured  to  say  he  hoped  he 
would  be  allowed  to  play  football  that  afternoon,  as  he 
had  never  felt  better  in  his  life.  Heriot  said  that  was  a 
question  for  the  doctor,  who  would  be  in  to  see  Jan  dur- 
ing the  forenoon. 

The  doctor  came,  and  Jan  could  not  remember  the 
last  time  a  doctor  had  been  to  see  him.  This  one  sat 
over  him  with  a  long  face,  felt  his  pulse,  peered  into  his 
eyes,  looked  as  wise  as  an  owl  at  the  other  end  of  his 
stethoscope,  and  then  began  asking  questions  in  a  way 
that  put  Jan  very  much  on  his  guard. 

"So  you've  been  playing  football  for  your  house?" 

"  Yessir — Under  Sixteen." 

"I  suppose  you  played  football  before  you  came 
here?" 

"No,  sir,"  said  Jan,  beginning  to  feel  uncomfortable. 

"Weren't  you  allowed?" 

This  question  came  quickly,  but  Jan  took  his  time 
over  it  as  coolly  as  he  could.  Obviously  the  doctor  little 
dreamt  that  this  was  his  first  school.  On  no  account 
must  he  suspect  it  now.    And  it  was  tme,  as  it  happened, 


88  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

that  his  father  had  once  and  for  all  forbidden  Jan  to 
play  football  with  Master  Evan,  because  he  played  so 
roughly. 

"No,  sir." 

"  You  were  not  allowed  ?  '* 

"No,  sir." 

"Do  you  know  why?" 

"No,  sir." 

"Well,  I  think  I  do,"  said  the  doctor,  rising.  "And 
you  mustn't  play  here,  either,  at  any  rate  for  the 
present." 

Jan  shot  upright  on  the  sofa. 

"Your  heart  isn't  strong  enough,"  said  the  doctor. 

"My  heart's  all  right!"  cried  Jan,  indignantly. 

"Perhaps  you'll  allow  me  to  be  the  best  judge  of 
that,"  returned  the  doctor.  "You  may  go  back  to  your 
house,  and  I  shall  send  a  line  to  Mr.  Heriot.  There's  no 
reason  why  you  should  lie  up;  this  is  Saturday,  you'll  be 
quite  fit  for  school  on  Monday;  but  no  football,  mind, 
until  I  give  you  leave." 

Jan  tried  to  speak,  but  he  had  tied  his  own  tongue. 
He  could  not  explain  to  the  doctor,  he  could  not  explain 
to  Heriot.  He  did  not  know  why  he  had  fainted  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  that  morning;  he  only  knew  that  it 
was  not  his  heart,  that  he  had  never  felt  better  than  after 
yesterday's  match.  And  now  he  was  to  be  deprived  of 
the  one  thing  he  liked  at  school,  the  one  thing  he  was  by 
way  of  getting  good  at,  his  one  chance  of  showing  what 
was  in  him  to  those  who  seemed  to  think  there  was 
nothing  at  all!  And  another  Under  Sixteen  house-match 
would  be  played  next  week,  perhaps  against  Haigh,  who 
had  also  won  their  tie.  And  all  he  would  be  able  to  do 
would  be  to  stand  by  yelling  "Reds!"  and  having  his 
shins  lashed  by  some  beastly  praepostor,  and  hearing 


LIKES  AND  DISLIKES  89 

himself  bracketed  with  Chips  as  a  "sham"  and  a  "sloper" 
— ^and  knowing  it  was  true! 

That  was  the  worst  of  it.  His  heart  was  all  right. 
It  was  all  a  complete  misunderstanding  and  mistake. 
It  was  a  mistake  that  Jan  knew  he  could  have  set  right 
by  going  to  Heriot  and  explaining  why  he  had  never 
played  football  before,  and  why  it  was  barely  true  to  say 
that  he  had  not  been  allowed. 

But  Jan  was  not  going  to  anybody  to  say  anything  of 
the  kind. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CORA.M  POPULO 

On  the  notice-board  in  the  colonnade  there  was  a  sudden 
announcement  which  no  new  boy  could  understand.  It 
was  to  the  effect  that  Professor  Abinger  would  pay  his 
annual  visit  on  the  Monday  and  Tuesday  of  the  following 
week.  Neither  Carpenter  nor  Rutter  had  ever  heard 
his  name  before,  and,  on  the  way  up  the  hill  to  second 
school,  they  inquired  of  Rawlinson,  the  small  fellow  in  his 
own  house  whom  Haigh  had  begun  reviling  on  the  first 
morning  of  the  term. 

"Who's  Abinger?"  repeated  Rawlinson.  "You  wait 
and  see!    You'll  love  him,  Tiger,  as  much  as  I  do!" 

"Why  shall  I?"  asked  Jan,  who  liked  Rawlinson, 
and  only  envied  him  his  callous  gaiety  under  oppression. 

"  Because  he'll  get  us  off  two  days  of  old  Haigh,"  said 
Rawlinson,  capering  as  though  the  two  days  would  never 
end. 

"Don't  hustle!" 

"I'm  not  hustling.  I  take  my  oath  I'm  not.  Grand 
old  boy,  Abinger,  besides  being  just  about  the  biggest  bug 
alive  on  elocution!" 

"Who  says  so?" 

"Jerry,  for  one!  Anyhow  he  comes  down  twice  a 
year,  and  takes  up  two  whole  days,  barring  first  school 
and  private  work;   that's  why  Abinger's  a  man  to  love." 

90 


CORMl  POPULO  91 

"But  what  does  he  do?  Give  us  readings  all  the 
time?"  asked  Chips,  one  of  whose  weaknesses  was  the 
inane  question. 

"Give  iLS  readings?  I  like  that!"  cried  Rawlinson, 
shouting  with  laughter.  "It's  the  other  way  about,  my 
good  ass!" 

"Do  we  have  to  read  to  him?" 

"Every  mother^s  son  of  us,  before  the  whole  school, 
and  all  the  masters  and  the  masters'  wives!" 

Chips  went  on  asking  questions,  and  Jan  was  only 
silent  because  he  took  a  greater  interest  in  the  answers 
than  he  cared  to  show.  The  ordeal  foreshadowed  by 
Rawlinson  was  indeed  rather  alarming  to  a  new  boy  with 
an  accent  which  had  already  exposed  him  to  some 
contumely.  Yet  his  ear,  sharpened  by  continual 
travesties  of  his  speech,  informed  Jan  that  he  was  by  no 
means  the  only  boy  in  the  school  whose  vowels  were  of 
eccentric  breadth.  It  was  a  point  on  which  he  was  not  un- 
duly sensitive,  but,  in  his  heart,  only  too  willing  to  improve. 
He  was,  however,  more  on  his  guard  against  the  outlandish 
word  and  the  rustic  idiom,  which  still  cropped  up  in  his 
conversation,  but  could  not  possibly  affect  his  reading 
aloud.  The  result  of  the  last  reflection  was  that  Jan  sub- 
dued his  fears,  and  rejoiced  with  Rawlinson  at  the  pros- 
pect of  a  break  in  the  term's  work. 

Their  joy  was  enhanced  by  the  obvious  exasperation 
of  Haigh,  who  scarcely  concealed  from  his  form  his  own 
opinion  of  Professor  Abinger  and  the  impending  function. 
Many  were  his  covert  sneers,  and  loud  his  angry  laughter, 
as  he  hit  upon  something  for  the  Middle  Remove  to 
declaim  piecemeal  between  them.  The  chosen  passage  was 
taken  almost  at  random  from  one  of  Hans  Andersen's 
Fairy  Tales,  which  for  some  reason  formed  a  standard 
work  throughout  the  school,  and  which  drew  from  Haigh 


92  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

the  next  thing  to  a  personal  repudiation  of  the  volume  in 
his  hands.  It  was  at  least  plain  that  means  and  end 
shared  his  cordial  disapproval,  but  outward  loyalty  clipped 
the  spoken  word,  and  the  form  were  not  surprised  when  he 
finished  with  a  more  satisfying  fling  at  Jan. 

"Some  of  you  fellows  in  Mr.  Heriot's  house,"  said 
Haigh,  "may  perhaps  find  time  to  rehearse  Rutter  in  the 
few  words  that  are  likely  to  fall  to  his  tender  mercies. 
Otherwise  we  may  trust  him  to  disgrace  us  before  every- 
body." 

Indignant  glances  were  cast  at  Jan's  hangdog  head 
by  those  who  wished  to  stand  well  with  Haigh;  one 
within  reach  dealt  him  a  dexterous  kick  upon  the  shins; 
and  Jan  took  it  all  with  leaden  front,  for  that  was  his 
only  means  of  getting  the  least  bit  even  with  his  adult 
tormentor.  Nevertheless,  on  the  Sunday  evening,  when 
one  could  sit  in  another's  study  after  lock-up  by  special 
leave,  and  Jan  and  Chips  had  availed  themselves  of  the 
privilege,  Hans  Andersen  was  the  author  that  each  had 
open  before  him,  as  the  pair  munched  their  way  through 
a  bag  of  biscuits  bought  with  their  Saturday  allowance. 

They  were  not  disappointed  in  the  elderly  gentleman 
who  opened  his  campaign  next  morning.  He  had  an 
admirable  platform  presence,  and  a  fine  histrionic  face  in 
a  cascade  of  silvery  hair.  Nor  had  he  made  many  of  his 
opening  observations — in  a  voice  like  a  silver  bell — before 
the  youngest  of  his  new  hearers  perceived  that  Professor 
Abinger  was  really  as  distinguished  as  he  looked.  He 
was  evidently  the  companion  of  even  more  distinguished 
men.  He  spoke  of  the  statesmen  and  the  judges  whom  he 
had  specially  coached  for  the  triumphs  of  their  political 
and  forensic  careers.  He  mentioned  a  certain  Cabinet 
Minister  as  a  particularly  painstaking  pupil  in  his  younger 
days.    He  laid  the  scene  of  a  recent  personal  experience 


CORAM  POPULO  93 

in  a  ducal  mansion,  and  that  led  him  into  an  indiscreet 
confession  involving  an  even  more  illustrious  name. 
Professor  Abinger  seemed  quite  embarrassed  by  his 
inadvertence;  and  the  Head  Master,  who  had  taken  a  side 
seat  on  his  own  platform,  might  have  been  seen  frowning 
at  his  watch,  which  he  closed  with  a  very  loud  snap.  But 
the  two  new  boys  in  the  Middle  Remove  saw  how  difficult 
it  must  be  for  a  member  of  such  exalted  circles  to  avoid 
all  mention  of  his  most  intimate  acquaintance.  And 
when  Rawlinson  looked  at  them  and  laughed,  they  nodded 
their  complete  agreement  with  his  estimate  of  the  eminent 
professor. 

"When  I  look  about  me  in  this  schoolroom," 
concluded  Mr.  Abinger  somewhat  hastily,  as  he  beamed 
upon  the  serried  ranks  before  him,  "and  when  I  see  the 
future  generals  and  admirals,  bishops  and  statesmen, 
lawyers  and  physicians  of  high  standing — men  of  mark 
in  every  sphere — even  Peers  of  the  Realm  itself — who 
hear  me  now,  whom  I  myself  am  about  to  hear  in  my 
turn — when  I  dip  into  your  futures  far  as  human  eye 
can  see — then  I  realise  afresh  the  very  wide  responsi- 
bility— the — the  imperial  importance — of  these  visits  to 
this  school!" 

There  might  have  been  applause;  a  certain  amount  of 
sly  merriment  there  was;  but  Mr.  Thrale  prevented  the 
one,  and  cut  the  other  mighty  short,  by  sternly  summoning 
the  Upper  Fourth. 

There  was  a  scraping  and  shambling  of  feet  in  the 
rows  behind  the  Middle  Remove,  and  up  to  the  platform 
trooped  the  pioneer  force.  Jan  could  only  think  of  the 
narrowness  of  his  escape — he  had  heard  that  the  forms 
were  called  up  in  any  order — and  he  was  wondering 
whether  there  was  so  much  to  fear  after  all,  from  such 
a  perfect  gentleman   and   jolly   old    boy,   when   Evan 


94  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Devereux  passed  quite  close  to  him  with  the  other 
pioneers.  And  Evan's  ears  were  red  to  the  tip— Evan  who 
looked  neat  and  dapper  enough  to  stand  up  before  the 
world — Evan  who  was  a  gentleman  if  there  was  one  in  the 
school! 

The  Upper  Fourth  huddled  together  on  the  platform, 
each  boy  with  a  fat  blue  volume  of  Hans  Christian 
Andersen  open  at  the  fatal  place.  Then,  at  a  sign  from 
the  Head  Master,  the  captain  of  the  form  took  a  step 
forward,  threw  out  his  chest  like  a  man,  and  plunged  into 
the  middle  of  one  of  the  tales  with  a  couple  of  sentences 
that  made  the  rafters  ring.  The  professor  stood  smiling 
his  approval  at  the  intrepid  youth's  side,  and  Mr.  Thrale 
nodded  his  head  as  he  called  for  the  second  boy  in  form's 
order.  The  successful  performer  sidled  to  the  end  of  an 
empty  bench  immediately  below  the  platform,  and  sat 
down  against  the  wall.  His  place  was  taken  by  one  bent 
on  following  his  good  example,  but  in  too  great  a  hurry  to 
get  it  over.  "*A  myrtle  stood  in  a  pot  in  the  window,'" 
he  had  begun  in  a  breath,  when  the  Head  Master 
exclaimed  "Three  o'clock!"  in  portentous  tones,  and  the 
second  performer  melted  from  the  platform  like  a 
wraith. 

"That's  the  worst  he  does  to  you,"  whispered 
Carpenter,  who  had  been  making  his  usual  inquiries.  "  It 
only  means  coming  in  at  three  for  another  shot  with  the 
other  failures." 

Meanwhile  the  professor  was  pointing  out  the  second 
boy's  mistake.  He  laid  it  down  as  the  first  of  first 
principles  that  a  distinct  pause  must  separate  the  subject 
of  any  sentence  from  its  predicate;  he  added  that  he  had 
preached  that  doctrine  in  that  place  for  so  many  years 
that  he  had  hoped  it  was  unnecessary  to  begin  preaching 
it  again;  but  perhaps  he  had  never  had  the  advantage  of 


CORAM  POPULO  95 

meeting  his  young  friend  before?  His  young  friend  had 
to  rise  in  his  place  of  premature  retirement,  next  but  one 
to  the  wall,  and  confess  with  burning  cheeks  that  such 
was  not  the  case.  And  when  the  point  had  been  duly 
laboured,  proceedings  were  resumed  by  a  lad  who  cleared 
the  obstacle  with  an  audaciously  protracted  pause  after 
the  word  "  myrtle." 

It  was  an  obstacle  at  which  many  fell  throughout  the 
morning,  the  three  o'clock  sentence  being  promptly 
pronounced  upon  each;  but  there  were  other  interludes 
more  entertaining  to  the  audience  and  more  trying  to  the 
temporary  entertainer.  There  were  several  stammerers 
who  were  made  to  beat  time  and  to  release  a  syllable  at 
each  beat;  and  there  was  more  than  one  timid  child  to  be 
paternally  conducted  by  the  professor  to  the  very  far  end 
of  the  huge  room,  and  made  to  call  out,  "  Can  you  hear  my 
voice?"  until  the  Head  Master  at  his  end  signified  that 
he  could.  ("No,  I  can't!"  he  replied  very  sternly  on  one 
occasion.)  There  were  even  a  few  mirthful  seconds 
supplied  by  Devereux,  of  all  fellows,  over  something 
which  Jan  quite  failed  to  follow,  but  which  made  him 
almost  as  hot  and  miserable  as  Evan  had  turned  upon  the 
platform. 

Devereux,  however,  had  looked  rather  nervous  all  the 
time;  as  he  waited  his  turn  at  Abinger's  elbow  he  seemed 
uncomfortably  conscious  of  himself,  and  he  stepped  into 
the  breach  at  last  as  though  the  cares  of  the  school  were 
on  his  insignificant  shoulders.  Jan  felt  for  him  so  keenly 
as  to  hold  his  breath.  Evan  had  to  utter  an  extravagant 
statement  about  a  bottie,  but  his  reading  was  no  worse 
than  nervous  until  he  came  to  the  word  "exhilarated." 
He  said  "exhilyarated."  The  professor  invited  him  to 
say  it  again,  and  with  the  request  his  paternal  smile 
broadened  into  a  grin  of  less  oppressive  benevolence.    It 


96  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

was  a  very  slight  change  of  expression,  which  had  occurred 
more  than  once  before,  but  on  this  occasion  it  filled  Jan 
with  a  sudden  revulsion  of  feeling  towards  Professor 
Abinger.  Then  Evan  said  "  ex-hill-ysiTated"  making  a 
mountain  of  the  hill,  and  a  stem  voice  cried  "Three 
o'clock!'*  The  unlucky  culprit  looked  utterly  wretched 
and  crestfallen,  and  yet  so  attractive  in  his  trouble  that 
the  professor  himself  was  seen  to  intercede  on  his  behalf. 
But  a  still  sterner  voice  reiterated  "Three  o'clock  I" 

That  was  all,  and  it  was  so  quickly  over  that  Devereux 
was  himself  again  before  the  Upper  Fourth  returned  in  a 
body  to  their  place.  Indeed,  he  came  back  smiling,  and 
with  a  jaunty  walk,  as  some  criminals  foot  it  from  the 
dock.  But  Jan  could  not  catch  his  eye,  though  his  own 
were  soft  with  a  sympathy  which  he  longed  to  show,  but 
only  succeeded  in  betraying  to  Carpenter. 

"  I  might  have  known  you  were  hustling,"  Jan  said  to 
Rawlinson,  as  they  got  out  nearly  an  hour  later  than  from 
ordinary  second  school.  "I  say,  though,  I  do  bar  that 
old  brute — don't  you?" 

"What!  When  he's  coached  a  Cabinet  Minister,  and 
been  staying  as  usual  with  the  same  old  dukes  and 
dukesses  ?  " 

"If  he  ever  did,"  said  Jan,  his  whole  mind  poisoned 
by  the  treatment  meted  out  to  Evan.  "It's  easy  enough 
for  him  to  stand  up  there  scoring  off  chaps.  I'd  like  to 
score  off  him!" 

"Well,  you  wouldn't  be  the  first.  He  was  properly 
scored  off  once,  by  a  chap  called  Bewicke  in  the  Upper 
Sixth.  Come  my  way,"  said  Rawlinson,  "and  I'll  tell 
you.  Bewicke  had  heard  that  opening  speech  about  the 
Cabinet  Minister,  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  so  often  that  he 
knew  the  whole  thing  by  heart,  and  used  to  settle  down 
to  sleep  as  soon  as  old  Abinger  got  a  start.    So  one  time 


CORAM  POPULO  97 

Jerry  catches  him  safe  in  the  arms  of  Morpheus,  and  says, 
'Bewicke,  be  good  enough  to  get  up  and  repeat  to  the 
school  the  substance  of  Professor  Abinger's  last  remarks.' 
So  Bewicke  gets  up,  blinking,  not  having  heard  a  bloom- 
ing word,  and  begins:  'The  other  day,  when  I  had  the 
privilege  of  being  an  honoured  guest  of  his  Grace  the 

Duke  of '    'Three  o'clock!'  says  Jerry,  and  they  say 

Bewicke  was  jolly  near  bunked.  It  was  before  my  time, 
worse  luck!  I  wish  I'd  heard  it,  don't  you?  I  say,  we 
were  lucky  to  escape  this  morning,  weren't  we?  But 
I'm  not  sure  I  don't  wish  we'd  got  it  over,  myself." 

Four  of  the  lower  forms  had  been  polished  off  between 
ten  and  twelve-thirty,  and  three  more  followed  in  the 
hour-and-a-half  of  third  school;  but  the  Middle  Remove 
was  not  one  of  the  three.  There  remained  only  second 
school  on  the  second  day — a  half-holiday — and  Carpenter 
had  heard  that  much  of  the  morning  would  be  devoted  to 
a  Sixth  Form  Competition  for  the  Abinger  Medal.  He 
had  also  learnt  for  a  fact  that  all  the  forms  were  not 
always  called  upon,  and  Jan  agreed  that  in  that  case  they 
were  beginning  to  stand  an  excellent  chance  of  being 
missed  out.  However,  no  sooner  were  the  proceedings 
resumed  on  a  pink  and  frosty  morning,  than  the  bolt  fell 
for  the  Middle  Remove. 

The  big  schoolroom  looked  abnormally  big  as  Jan  took 
a  shy  peep  down  from  the  platform.  It  seemed  to  contain 
four  thousand  boys  instead  of  four  hundred.  It  felt  as 
cold  as  an  empty  church.  The  Head  Master's  fingers  looked 
blue  with  a  joiner's  pencil  poised  between  them  over  a 
school  list;  and  as  he  sat  with  bent  head  and  raised  ear 
his  breath  was  just  visible  against  his  sombre  gown.  But 
Professor  Abinger  in  black  spats  and  mittens  was  brisker 
and  crisper  and  more  incisive  than  on  the  previous  day; 
his  paternal  smile  broke  more  abruptly  into  the  grin  of 


98  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

impaired  benevolence;  his  flowing  mane  looked  merely 
hoary,  and  his  silvery  voice  had  rather  the  staccato  ring 
of  steel. 

He  might  almost  have  heard  Haigh's  opinion  of  him, 
he  was  so  hard  upon  that  form.  The  passage  which 
Haigh  had  chosen  was  from  a  story  called  "The  Mermaid,** 
and  the  very  first  reader  had  to  say  "colossal  mussel  shells'* 
— perhaps  a  better  test  of  sobriety  than  of  elocution — but 
Abinger  would  have  it  repeated  until  a  drunken  man 
could  have  done  it  better  and  the  whole  school  was  in  a 
roar.  Jan  set  his  teeth  at  the  back  of  the  little  knot  upon 
the  platform:  he  knew  what  he  would  do  rather  than 
make  them  laugh  like  that.  But  no  one  else  made  them 
laugh  like  that,  though  Buggins  was  asked  whether  he 
had  been  bom  within  sound  of  Bow  Bells,  and  created 
some  amusement  by  the  rich  intonation  of  his  denial. 
Gradually  the  little  knot  melted,  and  the  bench  below  the 
platform  filled  up.  Jan  began  reading  over  and  over  to 
himself  the  sentences  that  seemed  certain  to  fall  to  him, 
as  he  was  still  doing  when  Carpenter  left  his  side  and 
lurched  into  the  centre  of  the  platform. 

Now,  poor  Chips  happened  to  have  had  a  bad  night 
with  his  tiresome  malady,  but  on  his  speech  it  had  the 
effect  of  a  much  more  common  disorder. 

"  The  bleached  bodes  of  bed,'*  he  began,  valiantly,  and 
was  still  making  a  conscientious  pause  after  the  subject 
of  the  sentence  when  a  hand  fell  on  his  shoulder  and  the 
wretched  Chips  was  looking  Professor  Abinger  in  the 
face. 

"Have  you  got  a  cold?"  inquired  the  professor,  with 
his  most  sympatiietic  smile. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Carpenter,  too  shy  to  explain  the 
permanent  character  of  die  cold  by  giving  it  its  proper 
name. 


CORAM  POPULO  99 

"Then  stand  aside,  and  blow  your  nose,"  said  the 
professor,  grinning  like  a  fatherly  fiend,  "while  the  next 
boy  reads." 

Jan  was  the  next  boy,  and  the  last;  and  he  strode 
forward  too  indignant  on  his  friend's  account  to  think  of 
himself,  and  cut  straight  into  the  laugh  at  Carpenter's 
expense.  Nothing,  in  fact,  could  have  given  Jan  such  a 
moral  fillip  at  the  last  moment.  He  cried  out  his  bit 
aggressively  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  but  forgot  none  of  the 
rules  laid  down,  and  even  felt  he  had  come  through  with 
flying  colours.  He  saw  no  smile  upon  the  sea  of  faces 
upturned  from  the  body  of  the  schoolroom.  Not  a 
syllable  fell  from  the  Head  Master  on  his  right.  Yet  he 
was  not  given  his  dismissal,  and  was  consequently  about 
to  begin  another  sentence  when  Professor  Abinger  took 
the  book  from  Jan's  hand. 

"  I  think  you  must  hear  yourself  as  others  hear  you,'* 
said  he.  "  Have  the  goodness  to  listen  to  me."  And  he 
read :  "  *  The  bleached  havmes  of  men  who  had  perished  at  sea 
and  soonJc  helaw  peeped  forth  from  the  arms  of  soome,  w'ile 
oothers  clootched  roodders  and  sea  chests  or  the  skeleeton  of 
some  land  aneemal;  and  most  horreeble  of  aU,  a  little 
mermaird  whom  they  had  caught  and  sooffercairted* 
There!"  cried  the  professor,  holding  up  his  hand  to  quell 
the  shouts  of  laughter.    "What  do  you  think  of  that?" 

Jan  stood  dumfounded  by  his  shame  and  rage,  a  grace- 
less and  forbidding  figure  enough,  with  untidy  hair  and 
a  wreck  of  a  tie,  and  one  lace  trailing:  a  figure  made  to 
look  even  meaner  than  it  was  by  the  spruce  old  handsome 
man  at  his  side. 

"What  dost  tha*  think  o*  yon?"  pursued  the  professor, 
dropping  into  dialect  with  ready  humour. 

"  It's  not  what  I  said,"  muttered  Jan,  so  low  that  his 
questioner  alone  could  hear. 


100  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Not  what  you  said,  eh?  We'll  take  you  through 
it.    How  do  you  pronounce  'bones'?" 

No  answer,  but  a  firmer  cast  to  the  jaw  of  Jan,  a  less 
abject  droop  of  the  shoulders,  a  good  inch  more  in  actual 
stature. 

;  "  B,  o,  n,  e,  s  I "  crooned  the  professor,  shewing  all  his 
teeth. 

But  Jan  had  turned  into  a  human  mule.  And  the 
silence  in  the  great  room  had  suddenly  grown  profound. 

"Well,  we'll  try  something  else,"  said  the  professor, 
consulting  the  text  somewhat  unsteadily,  and  speaking 
in  a  rather  thin  voice.  "Let  us  hear  you  say  the  word 
*  sunk.*  S,  u,  n,  k — sunk.  Now,  if  you  please,  no  more 
folly.    You  are  wasting  all  our  time." 

Jan  had  forgotten  that;  the  reminder  caused  him  a 
spasm  of  satisfaction.  Otherwise  he  was  by  this  time  as 
entirely  aware  of  his  folly  as  anybody  else  present;  but  it 
was  too  late  to  point  it  out  to  him;  it  was  too  late  to  think 
of  it  now;  his  head  was  burning,  his  temples  throbbed,  his 
tongue  clave.  He  could  not  have  spoken  now  if  he  had 
tried.  But  it  would  have  taken  a  better  man  than  Abinger 
to  make  him  try.  And  the  better  man  sat  by  without  a 
word,  pale,  stern,  and  troubled  with  a  complex  indignation. 

"I  can  do  nothing  with  this  boy,"  said  Abinger, 
turning  to  him  with  just  a  tremor  in  his  thin  high  tones. 
"  I  must  leave  him  to  you,  Mr.  Thrale." 

"  Twelve  o'clock  I "  cried  the  other  with  ominous 
emphasis;  and  as  he  stabbed  the  school  list  with  his 
joiner's  pencil,  the  Middle  Remove  rose  and  returned 
down  the  gangway  to  their  accustomed  place. 

Jan  went  with  them  as  one  walking  in  his  sleep. 
And  Carpenter  followed  Jan  with  a  tragic  face  and  tears 
very  near  the  surface.  But  as  one  sees  furthest  before 
rain,  so  Chips  saw  a  good  deal  as  he  walked  back  blinking 


CORAM  POPULO  101 

for  his  life.  And  one  of  the  things  he  happened  to  see 
was  Evan  Devereux  and  the  fellow  next  him  doubled  up 
in  fits  of  laughter. 

The  Head  Master  usually  sat  in  judgment  on  the 
culprits  of  the  day  without  vacating  his  oaken  throne  in 
the  Upper  Sixth  class-room  until  the  first  of  them  knelt 
down  for  his  deserts.  But  the  Abinger  visitation  upset 
everything;  and  on  this  occasion,  when  the  campaign 
ended  with  the  award  of  a  medal  to  the  praepostor  who 
had  done  least  violence  to  a  leading  article  in  the  day's 
Times,  Mr.  Thrale  remained  on  his  platform  in  conversa- 
tion with  Professor  Abinger  while  the  school  filed  out 
form  by  form.  Meanwhile  three  delinquents  besides 
Jan  awaited  his  arrival  on  the  scene  of  trial  and  execu- 
tion, while  a  number  of  the  smaller  fry  pressed  their 
noses  to  the  diamond  panes  of  the  windows  overlooking 
the  school  yard;  and  the  public  gallery  in  a  criminal 
court  could  not  have  been  better  patronised  for  a  notori- 
ous case  than  were  these  windows  to-day. 

One  of  the  other  malefactors  had  brought  a  slip  of 
paper  which  he  showed  to  Jan;  on  it  was  set  forth  a 
crime  of  a  type  which  Mr.  Thrale  was  at  that  time  taking 
Draconic  measures  to  stamp  out  of  the  school .  "  Hornton 
says  ireiroL'qKcun  is  a  Dative  Plural.  .  .  I  think  he  deserves  a 
good  flogging,"  the  committing  master  had  written,  and 
signed  the  warrant  with  his  initials.  Jan  had  just  reached 
that  hieroglyph  when  in  sailed  their  judge  and  executioner 
in  his  cap  and  gown. 

The  boy  who  deserved  the  good  flogging  advanced 
and  delivered  his  certificate  of  demerit.  Mr.  Thrale 
examined  the  damning  document,  and  when  he  came  to  the 
pious  opinion  at  the  end,  exclaimed  with  simple  fervour, 
"So  do  I!"  With  that  he  opened  his  desk  and  took  out 
his  cane,  and  the  boy  who  deserved  it  knelt  down  with 


102  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

stolid  alacrity.  The  venerable  executioner  then  gathered 
half  his  gown  into  his  left  hand,  and  held  it  away  at 
arm's  length  to  give  free  play  to  his  right.  And  diere 
followed  eight  such  slashing  cuts  as  fetched  the  dust 
from  a  taut  pair  of  trousers,  and  sent  their  wearer 
waddling  stiffly  from  the  room. 

"  Wasn't  padded,"  whispered  one  of  those  left  to  Jan, 
who  put  an  obvious  question  with  a  look,  which  was 
duly  answered  with  a  wink. 

Meanwhile  a  sturdy  youth  in  round  spectacles  was 
being  severely  interrogated,  and  replying  promptly  and 
earnestly,  without  lowering  his  glasses  from  the  awful 
aspect  of  the  flogging  judge. 

"You  may  go,"  said  Mr.  Thrale  at  length.  "Your 
honesty  has  saved  you.  Trevor  next.  I've  heard  about 
you,  Trevor;  kneel  down,  shirker!" 

And  the  wily  Trevor  not  only  knelt  with  futile  re- 
luctance, but  writhed  impotently  during  his  castigation, 
though  the  eight  strokes  made  half  the  noise  of  the  other 
eight;  and  once  up  he  went  his  way  serenely  with 
another  wink  at  Jan. 

Now  by  these  days  Jan  had  discovered  that  out  of 
his  pulpit  Mr.  Thrale  was  sufficientiy  short  and  sharp  of 
speech,  rough  and  ready  of  humour,  with  a  trick  of 
talking  down  to  fellows  in  their  own  jargon  as  well  as 
over  their  heads  in  parables.  "Sit  down,  Rutter,  and 
next  time  you  won't  sit  down  so  comfortably!"  he  had 
rapped  out  at  Jan  when  the  Middle  Remove  went  to 
construe  to  the  Head  Master  early  in  the  term.  And  it 
was  next  time  now. 

Jan  was  left  alone  in  the  presence,  and  that  instant 
became  ashamed  to  find  he  was  already  trembling. 
He  had  not  trembled  on  the  platform  before  the  whole 
school;    his  blood  had  been   frozen  then,  now  it  was 


CORAM  POPULO  103 

bubbling  in  his  veins.  He  was  being  looked  at.  That 
was  all.  He  was  receiving  such  a  look  as  he  had  never 
met  before,  a  look  from  wide  blue  eyes  with  hidden  fires 
in  them,  and  dilated  nostrils  underneath,  and  under  them 
a  mouth  that  looked  as  though  it  would  never,  never 
open. 

It  did  at  last. 

"Rebel!"  said  a  voice  of  unutterable  scorn.  "Do 
you  know  what  they  do  with  rebels,  Rutter?" 

"No,  sir." 

It  never  occurred  to  Jan  not  to  answer  now. 

"Shoot  them!    You  deserve  to  be  shot!" 

Jan  felt  he  did.  The  parable  was  not  over  his 
diminished  head;  it  might  have  been  carefully  concocted 
from  uncanny  knowledge  of  his  inmost  soul.  All  the 
potential  soldier  in  him — the  reserve  whom  this  General 
alone  called  out — ^was  shamed  and  humbled  to  the  dust. 

"You  are  not  only  a  rebel,"  the  awful  voice  went  on, 
"but  a  sulky  rebel.  Some  rebels  are  good  men  gone 
wrong;  there's  some  stuff  in  them;  but  a  sulky  rebel  is 
neither  man  nor  devil,  but  carrion  food  for  powder." 

Jan  agreed  with  all  his  contrite  heart;  he  had  never 
seen  himself  in  his  true  colours  before,  had  never  known 
how  vile  it  was  to  sulk;  but  now  he  saw,  and  now  he 
knew,  and  the  firing-party  could  not  have  come  too 
quick. 

The  flogging  judge  had  resumed  his  carved  oak  seat  of 
judgment  behind  the  desk.  Jan  had  not  seen  him  do  it — he 
had  seen  nothing  but  those  pregnant  eyes  and  lips — but 
there  he  was,  and  in  the  act  of  putting  his  homely 
weapon  back  in  the  desk.  Jan  could  have  groaned.  He 
longed  to  expiate  his  crime. 

"Thrashing  is  too  good  for  you,"  the  voice  resumed. 
"Have  you  any  good  reason  to  give  me  for  keeping  a 


104  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

sulky  rebel  in  a  standing  army?  Any  reason  for  not 
drumming  him  out?" 

Drumming  him  out!  Expelling  him!  Sending  him 
back  to  the  Norfolk  rectory,  and  thence  very  likely 
straight  back  to  the  nearest  stables!  More  light  rushed 
over  Jan.  He  had  seen  his  enormity;  now  he  saw  his 
life,  what  it  had  been,  what  it  was,  what  it  might  be 
again. 

"Oh,  sir,"  he  cried,  "I  know  I  speak  all  wrong — I 
know  I  speak  all  wrong!    You  see — you  see " 

But  he  broke  down  before  he  could  explain,  and  the 
more  piteously  because  now  he  felt  he  never  could 
explain,  and  this  hard  old  man  would  never,  never  under- 
stand. That  is  the  tragic  mistake  of  boys — to  feel  they 
can  never  be  understood  by  men! 

Yet  already  the  hard  old  man  was  on  his  feet  again, 
and  with  one  gesture  he  had  cleared  the  throng  from  the 
diamond-paned  windows,  and  laid  tender  hand  upon  Jan's 
heaving  shoulder. 

"I  do  see,"  he  said,  gently.  "But  so  must  you, 
Rutter — but  so  must  you!" 


CHAPTER  X 

ELEGIACS 

Jan  was  prepared  never  to  hear  the  last  of  his  outrageous 
conduct  in  the  big  schoolroom;  that  was  all  he  knew 
about  his  kind.  It  cost  him  one  of  the  efforts  of  his  school 
life  to  show  his  face  again  in  Heriot's  quad;  and  the  quad 
was  full  of  fellows,  as  he  knew  it  would  be;  but  only  one 
accosted  him,  and  that  was  Sprawson,  whose  open  hand 
flew  up  in  a  terrifying  manner,  to  fall  in  a  hearty  slap  on 
Jan's  back.  "Well  done.  Tiger!"  says  Sprawson  before 
half  the  house.  "That's  the  biggest  score  off  Abinger 
there's  been  since  old  Bewicke's  time."  And  Jan  rushed 
up  to  his  study  with  a  fresh  lump  in  his  throat,  though  he 
had  come  in  vowing  that  the  whole  house  together  should 
not  make  him  blub. 

That  night  at  tea  Jane  Eyre  of  all  people  (who  was 
splendidly  supplied  with  all  sorts  of  eatables  from  home) 
pushed  a  glorious  game  pie  across  the  table  to  Jan;  and 
altogether  there  was  for  a  few  hours  rather  more  sympathy 
in  the  air  than  was  good  for  one  who  after  all  had  made 
public  display  of  a  thoroughly  unworthy  propensity.  It 
is  true  that  Jan  had  gone  short  of  sympathy  all  his  life, 
and  that  a  wave  of  even  misplaced  sympathy  may  be  bene- 
ficial to  a  nature  suffering  from  this  particular  privation. 
But  a  clever  gentleman  was  waiting  to  counteract  all 
that,  and  to  undo  at  his  leisure  what  Mr.  Thrale  had  done 
in  about  two  minutes. 

105 


106  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

No  sooner  had  the  form  re-assembled  in  his  hall  next 
day  than  Haigh  made  them  a  set  sarcastic  speech  on  the 
subject  of  Jan's  enormity.  He  might  have  seen  at  a 
glance  that  even  outwardly  the  boy  was  already  chastened; 
that  his  jacket  and  his  hair  were  better  brushed  than  they 
had  been  all  the  term,  his  boots  properly  laced,  his  tie 
neatly  tied;  that  in  a  word  there  were  more  signs  of 
self-respect.  Haigh,  however,  preferred  to  look  at  his 
favourites  at  the  top  of  the  form,  and  merely  to  jerk  the 
thumb  of  contempt  towards  his  aversion  at  the  bottom. 
He  reminded  them  of  his  prophecy  that  Rutter  would 
disgrace  them  all  before  the  school,  and  the  triumph  of  the 
true  prophet  seemed  at  least  as  great  as  his  indignation  at 
what  had  actually  happened.  Even  he,  however,  had  not 
foreseen  the  quality  of  the  disgrace,  or  anticipated  a  fit  of 
sulks  in  public.  Yet  for  his  own  part  he  was  not  sorry 
that  the  headmaster,  and  Mr.  Heriot  and  all  the  other 
masters  and  boys  in  the  school,  should  have  had  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  for  themselves  what  they  in  that 
room  had  to  put  up  with  almost  every  day  of  the  term. 
And  the  harangue  concluded  with  a  plain  hint  to  the  form 
to  take  the  law  into  its  own  hands,  and  "knock  the  non- 
sense out  of  that  sulky  bumpkin,  who  has  made  us  the 
laughing-stock  of  the  place." 

To  all  of  which  Jan  listened  without  a  trace  of  his  old 
resentment,  and  then  stood  up  in  his  place. 

"I'm  very  sorry,  sir,"  said  he.  "I  apologise  to  you 
and  the  form." 

Haigh  looked  unable  to  believe  his  eyes  and  ears. 
But  he  was  not  the  man  to  revise  judgment  of  a  boy  once 
labelled  Poison  in  his  mind.  He  could  no  longer  fail  to 
note  the  sudden  improvement  in  Jan's  looks  and  manner; 
all  he  could  do  was  to  put  the  worst  construction  upon 
it  that  occurred  to  him  at  the  moment. 


ELEGIACS  107 

"I  shall  entertain  your  apology  when  you  look  less 
pleased  with  yourself,"  he  sneered.     "Sit  down." 

But  Jan's  good  resolutions  were  not  to  be  eradicated 
any  more  easily  than  the  rooted  hostility  of  Haigh,  who 
certainly  surpassed  himself  in  his  treatment  of  the  boy's 
persistent  efforts  at  amendment.  Jan,  though  no  scholar, 
and  never  likely  to  make  one  now,  could  be  sharp  enough 
in  a  general  way  when  he  chose.  But  he  never  had 
chosen  under  Mr.  Haigh.  It  was  no  use  attending  to  a 
brute  who  "hotted"  you  just  the  same  whether  you 
attended  or  not.  And  yet  that  little  old  man  in  the 
Upper  Sixth  class-room,  with  a  single  stern  analogy,  had 
made  it  somehow  seem  some  use  to  do  one's  best  without 
sulking,  even  without  looking  for  fair  play,  let  alone 
reward.  And,  feeling  a  regular  new  broom  at  heart,  Jan 
was  still  determined  to  sweep  clean  in  spite  of  Haigh. 

It  chanced  to  be  a  Virgil  morning,  and  of  course  the 
new  broom  began  by  saying  his  "rep"  as  he  had  never 
said  it  before.    Perhaps  he  deserved  what  he  got  for  that. 

"  I  thought  you  were  one  of  those  boys,  Rutter,"  said 
Haigh,  "who  affect  a  constitutional  difficulty  in  learning 
repetition?  I  only  wish  I'd  sent  you  up  to  Mr.  Thrale 
six  weeks  ago!" 

Yet  Jan  maintained  his  interest  throughout  the  fresh 
passage  which  the  form  proceeded  to  construe,  and  being 
put  on  duly  in  the  hardest  place,  got  through  again  without 
discredit.  It  was  easy,  however,  for  a  member  of  the 
Middle  Remove  to  take  an  interest  in  his  Virgil,  for  that 
poet  can  have  had  few  more  enthusiastic  interpreters  than 
Mr.  Haigh,  who  indeed  might  have  been  the  best  master  in 
the  school  if  he  had  been  less  of  a  bullying  boy  himself. 
His  method  in  a  Virgil  hour,  at  any  rate,  was  beyond 
reproach.  If  his  form  knew  the  lesson,  there  was  no 
embroidery  of  picturesque  detail  or  of  curious  mformation 


108  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

which  it  was  too  much  trouble  for  him  to  tack  on  for  their 
benefit.  The  Mneid  they  were  doing  was  the  one  about  the 
boat-race;  and  what  Mr.  Haigh  (who  had  adorned  both 
flood  and  field  at  Cambridge)  did  not  know  about  aquatics 
ancient  and  modem  was  obviously  not  worth  knowing. 
He  could  handle  a  trireme  on  the  blackboard  as  though  he 
had  rowed  in  one  in  the  Mays,  and  accompany  the  proceed- 
ing with  a  running  report  worthy  of  a  sporting  journalist. 
But  let  there  be  one  skeleton  at  the  feast  of  reason,  one 
Jan  who  could  not  or  would  not  understand,  and  the 
whole  hour  might  go  in  an  unseemly  duel  between 
intemperate  intellect  and  stubborn  imbecility.  Otherwise 
a  gloating  and  sonorous  Haigh  would  wind  up  the  morning 
with  Conington's  translation  of  the  lesson;  and  this  was 
one  of  those  gratifying  occasions;  in  fact,  Jan  was  attending 
as  he  had  never  before  attended,  when  one  couplet  caught 
his  fancy  to  the  exclusion  of  all  that  followed. 

"  These  bring  success  their  zeal  to  fan  ; 
They  can  because  they  think  they  can." 

"Perhaps  I  can,"  said  Jan  to  himself,  "  if  I  think  I  can. 
I  will  think  I  can,  and  then  we'll  see." 

Haigh  had  shut  the  book  and  was  putting  a  question 
to  the  favoured  few  at  the  top  of  the  form.  "  Conington 
has  one  fine  phrase  here,"  he  said.  "  I  wonder  if  any  of 
you  noticed  it?  Possunt  quia  posse  videntur;  did  you 
notice  how  he  renders  that?" 

The  favoured  few  had  not  noticed.  They  looked 
seriously  concerned  about  it.  The  body  of  the  form  took 
its  discomfiture  more  philosophically,  having  less  to  lose. 
No  one  seemed  to  connect  the  phrase  with  its  English 
equivalent,  and  Mr.  Haigh  was  manifestly  displeased. 
"Possunt  quia  posse  videntur!"  he  repeated  ironically  as 
he  reached  the  dregs;  and  at  the  very  last  moment  Jan's 
fingers  flew  out  with  a  Sunday-school  snap. 


ELEGIACS  109 

"Well?"  said  Haigh  on  the  last  note  of  irony. 

"'They  can  because  they  think  they  can'!'*  cried 
Jan,  and  went  from  the  bottom  to  the  top  of  the  form  at 
one  flight,  amid  a  volley  of  venomous  glances,  but  with 
one  broad  grin  from  Carpenter, 

"I  certainly  do  wish  I'd  sent  you  up  six  weeks 
ago!"  said  Haigh.  "I  shall  be  having  a  decent  copy  of 
verses  from  you  next!" 

Yet  Jan,  though  quick  as  a  stone  to  sink  back  into  the 
mud,  made  a  gallant  effort  even  at  his  verses;  but  that 
was  his  last.  They  were  much  better  than  any  attempt 
of  his  hitherto;  but  it  was  clear  to  everybody  that  Haigh 
did  not  believe  they  were  Jan's  own.  Rutter  was  asked 
who  had  helped  him.  Rutter  replied  that  he  had  done 
his  verses  himself  without  help.  No  help  whatever? 
No  help  whatever.  Haigh  laughed  to  himself,  but  said 
nothing.  Jan  said  something  to  himself,  but  did  not 
laugh.  And  now  at  last  he  might  never  have  been  through 
those  two  minutes  in  the  Upper  Sixth  class-room. 

November  was  a  month  of  the  past;  another  week 
would  finish  off  the  term's  work,  leaving  ten  clear  and 
strenuous  days  for  the  Exams.  Haigh  could  only  set  one 
more  copy  of  Latin  verses,  and  Carpenter  was  as  sorry 
on  his  own  account  as  he  was  thankful  for  Jan's  sake. 
Carpenter  had  acquired  an  undeniable  knack  of  making 
hexameters  and  pentameters  that  continually  construed 
and  invariably  scanned;  it  was  the  one  thing  he  could  do 
better  than  anybody  in  the  form,  and  it  had  brought  him 
latterly  into  considerable  favour  with  a  master  whose 
ardour  for  the  Muse  betrayed  a  catholicity  of  intellect  in 
signal  contrast  to  his  view  of  boys.  It  was  not  only  the 
Greeks  and  Latins  whose  august  measures  appealed  to 
Haigh;  never  a  copy  of  elegiacs  set  he,  but  it  was  a  gem 
already  in  its  native  English,  and  his  voice  must  throb 


110  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

with  its  music  even  as  he  dictated  it  to  his  form.  All 
this  was  another  slight  mistake  in  judgment:  the  man 
made  a  personal  grievance  of  atrocities  inevitably  com- 
mitted upon  his  favourite  poets,  and  the  boys  conceived 
a  not  unreasonable  prejudice  against  some  of  the  noblest 
lyrics  in  the  language.  Carpenter  was  probably  the  only 
member  of  the  form  who  not  only  revelled  in  the  original 
lines,  but  rather  enjoyed  hunting  up  the  Latin  words,  and 
found  a  positive  satisfaction  in  fitting  them  into  their 
proper  places  as  dactyls  and  spondees. 

"That's  the  finest  thing  he's  set  us  yet,"  said  Chips, 
when  Haigh  had  given  them  Cory's  "Heraclitus"  for  the 
last  copy  of  the  term. 

"It'll  be  plucky  fine  when  I've  done  with  it,"  Jan 
rejoined  grimly. 

"  I  should  start  on  it  early,  if  I  were  you,"  said  Chips, 
"like  you  did  last  week." 

"And  then  get  told  you've  had  'em  done  for  you? 
Thanks  awfully;  you  don't  catch  me  at  that  game  again. 
Between  tea  and  prayers  on  Saturday  night's  good 
enough  for  me — if  I'm  not  too  done  after  the  paper- 
chase." 

"You're  not  going  to  the  paper-chase.  Tiger?" 

"I  am  if  I'm  not  stopped." 

"When  you're  not  even  allowed  to  play  football?" 

"That's  exactly  why." 

The  paper-chase  always  took  place  on  the  last  Saturday 
but  one,  and  was  quite  one  of  the  events  of  the  winter 
term.  All  the  morning,  after  second  school,  fags  had 
been  employed  in  tearing  up  scent  in  the  library;  and 
soon  after  dinner  the  road  under  Heriot's  study  windows 
began  to  resound  with  the  tramp  of  boys  on  their  way  in 
twos  and  threes  to  see  the  start  from  Burston  Beeches. 
A  spell  of  hard  weather  had  broken  in  sunshine  and  clear 


ELEGIACS  111 

skies;  the  afternoon  was  brilliantly  fine;  and  by  half- 
past  two  the  scene  in  the  paddock  under  the  noble  beeches, 
with  the  grey  tower  of  Burston  church  rising  behind  the 
leafless  branches,  was  worthy  of  the  day.  Practically  all 
the  school  was  there,  and  quite  a  quarter  of  it  in  flannels 
and  jerseys  red  or  white,  trimmed  or  starred  with  the 
colour  of  some  fifteen.  Off  go  the  two  hares — gigantic 
gentiemen  with  their  football  colours  thick  upon  them. 
Hounds  and  mere  boys  in  plain  clothes  crowd  to  the  gate 
to  see  the  last  of  them  and  their  bulging  bags  of  scent. 
The  twelve  minutes'  law  allowed  them  seems  much  more 
like  half-an-hour;  but  at  last  time  is  up,  the  gates  are 
opened,  and  the  motley  pack  pours  through  with  plenty 
of  plain  clothes  after  them  for  the  first  few  fields.  In 
about  a  mile  comes  the  first  check;  it  is  the  first  of  many, 
for  snow  is  still  lying  under  the  trees  and  hedges,  and  in 
the  distance  it  always  looks  like  a  handful  of  waste-paper. 
The  younger  hounds  take  a  minute  off,  leaving  their 
betters  to  pick  up  the  scent  again,  and  their  laboured  breath 
is  so  like  tobacco  smoke  that  you  fancy  that  young  master 
in  knickerbockers  is  there  to  see  that  it  is  not.  Off  again  to 
the  first  water-jump — which  everybody  fords — and  so 
over  miles  of  open  upland,  flecked  with  scent  and  snow — 
through  hedges  into  ditches — a  pack  of  mudlarks  now, 
and  but  a  remnant  of  the  pack  that  started.  Now  the 
scent  takes  great  zigzags,  and  lies  in  niggardly  handfuls 
that  tell  their  tale.  Now  it  is  thick  again,  and  here  are 
the  two  fags  who  met  the  hares  with  the  fresh  bags,  and 
those  gigantic  gentlemen  are  actually  only  five  minutes 
ahead,  for  here  is  the  high  road  back  past  the  Upper,  and 
if  it  wasn't  for  the  red  sun  in  your  eyes  there  should  be  a 
view  of  them  from  the  top  of  one  of  those  hills. 

On  the  top  of  the  last  hill,  by  the  white  palings  of  the 
Upper  Ground,  there  is  a  group  of  boys  and  masters,  and 


112  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

several  of  the  masters*  wives  as  well,  to  see  the  finish; 
and  it  is  going  to  be  one  of  the  best  finishes  they  ever 
have  seen.  Here  come  the  gigantic  gentlemen,  red  as 
Indians  with  the  sun  upon  their  faces,  and  one  of  them 
plunging  headlong  in  a  plain  distress.  They  rush  down 
that  hill,  and  are  half-way  up  this  one,  the  wet  mud 
shining  all  over  them  like  copper,  when  the  first  handful 
of  hounds  start  up  against  the  sky  behind  them. 

"Surely  that's  rather  a  small  boy  to  be  in  the  first 
dozen,"  says  Miss  Heriot,  pointing  out  a  puppy  in  an 
untrimmed  jersey,  who  is  running  gamely  by  himself 
between  the  first  and  second  batches  of  hounds. 

"  In  no  fifteen,  either,"  says  Heriot,  noticing  the  jersey 
rather  than  the  boy,  who  is  still  a  slip  of  muddy  white  on 
the  opposite  hill. 

The  hares  are  already  home.  They  have  been  received 
with  somewhat  perfunctory  applause,  the  real  excitement 
being  reserved  for  the  race  between  the  leading  hounds, 
now  in  a  cluster  at  the  foot  of  the  last  hill;  but  half-way 
up  the  race  is  over,  and  Sprawson  is  increasing  his  lead 
with  every  stride. 

"Well  run,  my  house!"  says  Heriot,  with  laconic 
satisfaction. 

"The  house  isn't  done  with  yet,  sir,"  pants  Sprawson, 
turning  his  back  to  the  sun.  "There's  young  Rutter  been 
running  like  an  old  hound  all  the  way;  here  he  is,  in  the 
first  ten  I" 

And  there  indeed  was  the  rather  small  boy  in  the 
plain  jersey  whom  neither  Heriot  nor  his  sister  had 
recognised  as  Jan;  but  then  he  looked  another  being 
in  his  muddy  flannels;  slimmer  and  trimmer,  and 
somehow  more  in  his  element  than  in  the  coat  and 
collar  of  workaday  life;  and  the  flush  upon  his  face 
is    not   merely    the    result   of   exercise   and    a    scarlet 


ELEGIACS  113 

sky,  it  is  a  flush  of  perfect  health  and  momentary 
happiness  as  well. 

In  fact  it  has  been  the  one  afternoon  of  all  the  term 
which  Jan  may  care  to  recall  in  later  life;  and  how  it 
will  stand  out  among  the  weary  walks  with  poor 
Carpenter  and  the  hours  of  bitterness  under  Haigh! 
But  the  afternoon  is  not  over  yet.  Sprawson  is  first  back 
at  the  house;  his  good-natured  tongue  has  been  wagging 
before  Jan  gets  there,  and  Jan  hears  a  pleasant  thing  or 
two  as  he  jogs  through  the  quad  to  change  in  the  lavatory. 
But  why  has  he  not  been  playing  football  all  these  weeks  ? 
It  might  have  made  just  the  difference  to  the  Under- 
Sixteen  team;  they  might  have  beaten  Haigh's  in  the 
second  round,  instead  of  just  losing  as  they  had  done  to 
his  mortification  before  Jan's  eyes.  What  did  he  mean 
by  pretending  to  have  a  heart,  and  then  running  like  this  ? 
It  must  be  jolly  well  inquired  into. 

"Then  you'd  better  inquire  of  old  Hill,"  says  Jan,  nam- 
ing the  doctor  as  disrespectfully  as  he  dares  to  the  captain 
of  the  house.     "  It  was  he  said  I  had  one,  Loder,  not  me!" 

And  Loder  looks  as  if  he  would  like  to  smack  Jan's 
head  again,  but  is  restrained  by  the  presence  of  Sprawson 
and  Cave  major,  both  of  whom  have  more  influence  in  the 
house  than  he.  The  great  Charles  Cave  has  not  been  in  the 
paper-chase;  he  will  win  the  Hundred  and  the  Hurdles 
next  term,  but  he  is  too  slender  a  young  Apollo  to  shine 
across  country,  and  is  not  the  man  to  go  in  for  the  few 
things  at  which  he  happens  not  to  excel.  He  does  not 
address  Jan  personally,  but  deigns  to  mention  him  in  a 
remark  to  Sprawson. 

"Useful  man  for  us  next  term,  Mother,"  says  Cave, 
"if  he's  under  fifteen." 

"When's  your  birthday,  Tiger?"  splutters  Sprawson 
from  the  showerbath. 


114  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"End  of  this  month,"  says  Jan. 

"Confound  your  eyes!"  cries  Mother  Sprawson, 
"then  you  won't  be  under  fifteen  for  the  sports,  and  I'll 
give  you  a  jolly  good  licking!'* 

But  what  Sprawson  really  does  give  Jan  is  cocoa 
and  biscuits  at  Maltby's  in  the  market-place:  a  most 
unconventional  attention  from  a  man  of  his  standing 
to  a  new  boy:  who  knows  enough  by  this  time  to  feel 
painfully  out  of  place  in  the  fashionable  shop,  and 
devoutly  to  wish  himself  with  Carpenter  at  one  of  their 
humble  haunts.  But  even  this  incident  is  a  memory 
to  treasure,  and  not  to  be  spoilt  by  the  fact  that  Shockley 
waylays  and  kicks  him  in  the  quad  for  "putting  on  a 
roll,"  and  that  Heriot  himself  has  Jan  into  his  study  after 
lock-up,  for  the  first  time  since  the  term  began,  and  first 
gives  him  a  severe  wigging  for  having  run  in  the  paper- 
chase  at  all,  but  sends  him  off  with  a  parting  compliment 
on  having  run  so  well. 

"He  said  he'd  only  been  forbidden  to  play  football," 
so  Bob  Heriot  reported  to  his  sister.  "  Of  course  I  had  to 
jump  on  him  for  that;  but  I  own  I'm  thankful  I  didn't 
find  out  in  time  to  stop  his  little  game.  It's  just  what 
was  wanted  to  lift  him  an  inch  out  of  the  ruck.  It 
augurs  the  sportsman  I  believe  he'll  turn  out  in  spite  of 
us." 

"But  what  about  his  heart?'* 

"He  hasn't  a  heart,  never  had  one,  and  after  this 
can  never  be  accused  of  such  a  thing  again." 

"I  wonder  you  didn't  go  to  Dr.  Hill  about  it  long 
ago.  Bob." 

"I  did  go  to  him.  But  Hill  said  he  wouldn't  take 
the  responsibility  of  letting  the  unfortunate  boy  play 
football  without  inquiring  into  his  past  history.  That 
was  the  last  proceeding  to  encourage,  and  so  my  hands 


ELEGIACS  115 

are  tied.  They  always  are  where  poor  Rutter  is  concerned. 
It  was  die  same  thing  with  Haigh  over  his  Latin  verses. 
He  wanted  me  to  write  to  the  boy's  preparatory  school- 
master! I  haven't  interceded  with  him  since.  Rutter's 
the  one  boy  in  my  house  I  can't  stick  up  for.  He  must 
sink  or  swim  for  himself,  and  I  think  he's  going  to 
swim;  if  he  were  in  any  other  form  I  should  be  sure. 
But  I  simply  daren't  hold  out  the  helping  hand  that  one 
would  to  others." 

Miss  Heriot  gave  an  understanding  nod. 

"I've  often  heard  you  say  you  can't  treat  two  boys 
alike.    Now  I  see  what  you  mean." 

"But  I  can't  treat  Rutter  as  I  ever  treated  any  boy 
before.  I've  got  to  keep  my  treatment  to  myself.  I 
mustn't  make  him  conscious,  if  I  know  it;  that  applies 
to  them  all,  of  course,  but  it  would  make  this  boy 
suspicious  in  a  minute.  He  puts  me  on  my  mettle,  I  can 
tell  you!  I'm  not  sure  that  he  isn't  putting  the  whole 
public-school  system  on  its  trial!" 

"That  one  boy,  Bob?" 

"They  all  do,  of  course.  They're  all  our  Judges  in 
the  end.  But  this  one  is  such  a  nut  to  crack,  and  yet 
there's  such  a  kernel  somewhere!  I  stake  my  place 
on  that.  The  boy  has  more  character  even  than  I 
thought." 

"Although  he  sulks?" 

"That's  often  a  sign.  It  means  at  the  least  courage 
of  one's  mood.  But  what  you  and  I  know,  and  have  not 
got  to  forget,  is  that  his  whole  point  of  view  is  probably 
different  from  that  of  any  fellow  who  ever  went  through 
the  school." 

"As  a  straw  plucked  from  the  stables?"  laughed  Miss 
Heriot  under  her  breath, 

"  Hush,  Milly,  for  heaven's  sake !    No.    I  was  thinking 


116  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

of  the  absolute  adventure  the  whole  thing  must  be  to 
him,  and  has  been  from  the  very  first  morning  when  he 
got  up  early  to  look  about  for  himself  like  a  castaway 
exploring  the  coast!" 

"Well,  I  only  hope  he's  found  the  natives  reasonably 
friendly!" 

The  sudden  friendliness  of  the  natives  was  of  course 
Jan's  greatest  joy,  as  for  once  he  revelled  in  the  peace 
and  quiet  of  the  untidiest  study  in  the  house.  He  was 
more  tired  than  he  had  ever  been  in  his  life  before, 
but  also  happier  than  he  had  ever  dreamt  of  being 
this  term.  The  hot-water  pipes  threw  a  modicum  of  grate- 
ful warmth  upon  his  aching  legs,  outstretched  on  the  leg- 
rest  of  the  folding-chair.  The  curtains  were  closely  drawn, 
the  candles  burning  at  his  elbow.  On  his  knees  lay 
a  Gradus  ad  Pamassum,  open,  upon  an  open  English- 
Latin;  and  propped  against  the  candle-sticks  was  the 
exercise  book  in  which  he  had  taken  down  the  beautiful 
English  version  of  "  Heraclitus."  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  the  beauty  was  lost  upon  Jan,  who  was  much  too 
weary  to  make  a  very  resolute  attack  upon  a  position 
which  he  was  not  equipped  to  capture,  or  to  lead  another 
forlorn  hope  in  which  the  least  degree  of  success  would  be 
deemed  a  suspicious  circumstance.  But  he  did  make 
certain  idle  demonstrations  with  a  pencil  upon  a  bit  of 
foolscap.  And  ten  minutes  before  prayers  he  pulled  him- 
self sufficiently  together  to  write  his  eight  lines  out  in 
ink. 

"Let's  have  a  look,"  said  Carpenter,  as  they  waited 
for  the  Heriots  in  hall;  and  a  look  was  quite  enough. 
"I  say.  Tiger,  you  can't  show  this  up!  You'll  be  licked 
as  sure  as  eggs  are  eggs,"  whispered  Chips. 

"I  don't  care." 

"You  would  care.    You  simply  shan't  get  this  signed 


ELEGIACS  117 

to-night.  I'll  touch  it  up  after  prayers,  and  let  you  have 
it  in  time  to  make  a  clean  copy  before  ten,  and  Heriot'll 
sign  it  after  prayers  in  the  morning." 

And  he  put  that  copy  in  his  pocket  as  the  sentinel  in 
the  passage  flew  in  with  his  sepulchral  "Hush!" 

By  gulping  down  his  milk  and  taking  his  dog-rock 
with  him  to  his  study,  Carpenter  was  able  to  devote  a 
good  half-hour  to  Jan's  verses  and  still  give  Jan  ten 
minutes  to  copy  out  the  revised  version;  the  ten  minutes 
was  ample,  but  the  half-hour  was  all  too  short.  The  very 
first  line  began  with  a  false  quantity,  and  ended  with  a 
grammatical  blunder.  Carpenter  rectified  the  false  quan- 
tity by  a  simple  transposition,  and  made  so  bold  as  to 
substitute  perisse  for  moriri  at  the  end  of  the  hexameter. 
The  second  half  of  the  pentameter  was  hopeless:  Chips 
fell  back  on  his  own,  merely  changing  causa  doloris  to 
f£tus  acerbus,  and  plumed  himself  on  his  facility.  But 
in  the  second  couplet  every  other  foot  was  a  flogging 
matter  if  Jan  got  sent  up. 

"  I  wept,  as  I  remembered,  how  often  you  and  I 
Had  tired  the  sim  with  talking  and  sent  him  down  the  sky." 

Chips  loved  the  lines  well  enough  to  blush  for  his 

own  respectable  attempt  at  a  Latin  rendering;    but  his 

blood  ran  cold  at  Jan's — 

"  Flevi  quum  memini  nostro  quam  saepe  loquendo 
Defessum  Phcsbum  fecimus  ire  domum." 

He  flung  himself  on  the  monstrosity,  but  had  to  leave 
it  at — 

"  Cum  lacrymia  memini  nostro  quam  saepe  loquendo 
Hesperias  Phcebus  fessus  achsset  aquas." 

Chips  did  not  plume  himself  on  this;  but  at  any  rate 
nostro  loquendo  was  Jan's  own  gem,  and  just  bad  enough 
to  distract  attention  from  the  suspicious  superiority  of  the 
rest  without  invoking  the  direst  consequences.    This  was 


118  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

a  subtle  calculation  on  the  part  of  Carpenter.  He  was 
quite  conscious  of  the  subtlety,  and  by  no  means  as 
ashamed  of  it  as  such  a  desperately  honest  person  should 
have  been.  He  justified  the  means  by  the  end,  which 
was  to  save  Jan  a  certain  flogging;  and  the  stage  after 
justification  was  something  very  like  a  guilty  relish  in 
a  first  offence.  There  was  an  artistic  satisfaction  in 
doing  the  thing  as  deftly  as  Chips  was  doing  it.  The 
third  couplet  might  almost  have  passed  muster  as  Jan 
had  left  it;  a  touch  or  two  and  it  was  safe.  But  the 
last  hexameter  would  never  do,  and  Chips  replaced  it 
with  a  plagiarism  of  his  own  corresponding  line  which 
might  have  sufficed  if  he  himself  had  not  come  curiously 
to  grief  over  the  last  hexameter. 

"Excellent,  as  usual.  Carpenter,"  said  Haigh  in  the 
fulness  of  time.  "I  could  have  given  you  full  marks 
but  for  an  odd  mistake  of  yours  towards  the  end.  You 
seem  to  have  misread  the  original  penultimate  line: 
'Still  are  thy  pleasant  voices,  thy  nightingales,  awake;* 
what  part  of  speech  do  you  take  that  'stiir  to  be?" 

"Adjective,  sir,"  said  Chips,  beginning  to  wonder 
whether  it  was  one. 

"Exactly I"  cried  Haigh,  with  the  guffaw  of  his 
lighter  moments.  "  So  you  get  Muta  silet  vox  ista  placens, 
tua  carmina  vivunt — 'Thy  pleasant  voices  are  still;  on 
the  other  hand,  however,  thy  nightingales  are  awake* 
—eh?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Chips,  more  doubtfully  than  before. 

"Have  you  a  comma  after  the  word  'nightingales'  in 
the  English  line  as  you  took  it  down  ?  '* 

"No,  sir." 

"  That  accounts  for  it!  Ha,  ha,  ha!  But  it  may  be 
my  fault. "  Nothing  could  exceed  the  geniality  of  Haigh 
towards  a  boy  with  Carpenter's  little  gift.    He  was  going 


ELEGIACS  119 

through  the  week's  verses  on  the  chimneypiece  in  his 
hall,  but  now  he  turned  his  back  to  the  blazing  fire. 
"Will  those  who  have  a  comma  after  'nightingales'  be 
good  enough  to  hold  up  their  hands  ?  '*  A  forest  of  hands 
flew  up.  "I'm  afraid  it's  your  mistake.  Carpenter," 
resumed  Haigh,  with  a  final  guffaw.  "Well,  I  couldn't 
have  pitched  upon  a  finer  object-lesson  in  the  importance 
of  punctuation,  if  I  had  tried;  but  when  you  come  to  look 
at  it  again,  Carpenter,  you'll  find  that  even  without  the 
comma  your  reading  was  more  ingenious  than  plausible." 
He  turned  back  to  the  chimneypiece  and  the  pile  of 
verses.  The  incident  seemed  closed,  when  suddenly 
Haigh  was  seen  frowning  thoughtfully  into  the  fire. 
"Surely  there  was  some  other  fellow  did  the  same  thing!" 
he  exclaimed,  and  began  glancing  through  the  pile.  "Ah  I 
Rutter,  of  course!  Jucundce  voces  taciUe  sunt,  carmina 
vivurdV 

His  voice  was  completely  changed  as  it  rasped  out 
the  abhorred  surname;  it  changed  again  before  the  end 
of  Jan's  hexameter. 

"Were  you  helped  in  this,  Rutter?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Did  you  help  him.  Carpenter?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

There  was  not  an  instant's  hesitation  before  either 
answer.  Yet  the  very  readiness  of  the  culprits  to  confess 
their  crime  was  an  evident  aggravation  in  the  eyes  of 
Haigh,  who  flew  into  a  passion  on  the  spot. 

"And  you  own  up  to  it  without  a  blush  between  you! 
And  you,  Rutter,  expect  me  to  believe  that  the  same 
thing  didn't  happen  last  week,  when  you  denied  it!" 

"It  did  not  happen  last  week,  sir,"  said  Jan;  but  all 
save  the  first  three  words  were  drowned  by  Haigh. 

"Silence!"  he  roared.    "I  don't  believe  a  word  you 


120  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

say.  But  I  begin  to  think  you're  not  such  a  fool  as  you 
pretend  to  be,  Rutter;  you  saw  you  were  found  out  at  last, 
so  you  might  as  well  make  a  clean  breast  of  it!  That 
doesn't  minimise  the  effect  of  cheating,  or  the  impudence 
of  the  offence  in  a  brace  of  beggarly  new  boys.  Perhaps 
you  are  not  aware  how  dishonesty  is  treated  in  this 
school?  I  would  send  you  both  up  to  Mr.  Thrale  at 
twelve  o'clock,  but  we  don't  consider  that  a  flogging  meets 
this  kind  of  case.  It's  rather  one  in  which  the  whole 
must  suffer  for  the  corruption  of  a  part.  I  shall  consider 
the  question  of  a  detention  for  the  entire  form,  and  we'll 
see  if  they  can't  knock  some  rudimentary  sense  of  honour 
into  you!" 

The  two  delinquents  trembled  in  their  shoes;  they 
knew  what  they  were  in  for  now.  Had  they  entertained 
a  single  doubt  about  the  matter,  a  glance  at  the  black 
looks  encompassing  them  would  have  prepared  them  for 
the  worst.  But  Chips  had  not  the  heart  to  lift  his  eyes, 
and  so  a  slip  of  paper  was  thoughtfully  passed  down  to 
him  by  Shockley.  "I'll  murder  you  for  this,"  it  said; 
and  the  storm  burst  upon  the  hapless  couple  the  moment 
they  were  out  in  Haigh's  quad  after  second  school. 

"  What  the  deuce  do  you  both  mean  by  owning  up  ? " 

"I  wasn't  going  to  tell  a  lie  about  it,"  said  Jan, 
doggedly. 

"No  more  was  I!"  squealed  Chips,  as  Shockley 
twisted  his  arm  to  breaking  point  behind  his  back. 

"Oh,  yes,  you're  so  plucky  pious,  aren't  you? 
Couldn't  do  Thicksides  with  other  people;  too  highly 
moral  and  plucky  superior  for  that;  but  not  above 
doing  the  Tiger's  verses,  and  getting  the  whole  form 
kept  in!" 

"It  isn't  for  getting  your  verses  done,"  cried  another 
big  fellow,  frankly,  as  he  tried  but  failed  to  get  a  free 


ELEGIACS  121 

kick  at  Rutter:  "it*s  for  being  such  infernal  young  fools 
as  to  own  up!" 

So  much  for  the  sense  of  honour  to  be  knocked  into 
the  fraudulent  pair  by  the  rest  of  the  form  I  It  was 
a  revelation  to  Carpenter  and  Rutter.  They  knew  that 
Shockley  and  Buggins  rarely  did  a  line  of  any  sort  of 
composition  for  themselves,  and  more  than  once  they  had 
heard  the  pair  indignantly  repudiate  the  slightest  sug- 
gestion against  their  good  faith  on  the  part  of  Haigh.  But 
these  poor  specimens  in  their  own  house  and  form  were 
the  only  fellows  whose  code  of  honour  they  had  been 
hitherto  able  to  probe.  And  it  did  surprise  them  to  find 
some  of  the  nicest  fellows  in  the  form  entirely  at  one 
with  their  particular  enemies  in  condemning  the  honesty 
which  had  got  them  all  into  trouble. 

Was  it  a  good  system  that  could  bring  this  about? 
The  two  boys  did  not  ask  themselves  that  question;  nor 
did  it  occur  to  them  to  carry  their  grievance  to  Mr. 
Heriot,  whose  expert  opinion  would  have  been  as 
interesting  as  his  almost  certain  action  in  the  matter. 
But  in  the  bitterness  of  their  hearts  they  did  feel  that  an 
injustice  had  been  done;  and  one  of  them  at  any  rate  was 
very  sorry  that  he  had  told  the  truth.  He  would  know 
what  to  say  another  time.  Yet  how  human  the  fury  of 
the  form,  threatened  with  punishment  for  an  offence  for 
which  only  two  of  their  number  were  responsible,  and 
subdy  suborned  by  the  master  to  do  his  dirty  work  by 
venting  their  natural  anger  on  the  luckless  pair!  Could 
any  trick  be  shabbier  in  a  master?  Could  any  scheme  be 
more  demoralising  for  boys?  The  effect  on  them  was 
easily  seen.  They  were  to  inculcate  a  higher  sense  of 
schoolboy  honour.  And  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to 
curse  and  kick  you  for  not  piling  dishonour  on  dishonour's 
head! 


122  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Chips  and  Jan  did  not  see  the  fiendish  humour  of  the 
situation,  any  more  than  they  looked  beyond  their  im- 
mediate oppressors  for  first  principles  and  causes.  But 
whatever  may  be  said  for  the  punishment  of  many  for 
the  act  of  one  or  two,  as  the  only  thing  to  do  in  certain 
cases,  it  would  still  be  hard  to  justify  the  course  pursued 
by  Mr.  Haigh,  who  held  his  threat  over  the  whole  form 
until  the  two  boys'  lives  had  been  made  a  sujBBcient 
misery  to  them,  and  then  only  withdrew  it  in  considera- 
tion of  a  special  holiday  task,  to  be  learnt  by  heart  at 
home  and  said  to  him  without  a  mistake  (on  pain  of 
further  penalties)  when  they  came  back  after  Christmas. 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  MERRY  CHRISTMAS 

Christmas  weather  set  in  before  the  holidays.  Old  Boys 
came  trooping  down  from  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and 
stood  in  front  of  their  old  hall  fires  in  astonishing  ties  and 
wondrous  waistcoats,  patronising  the  Loder  of  the  house, 
familiar  only  with  the  Charles  Cave.  But  when  they 
went  in  a  body  to  inspect  the  Upper,  it  was  seen  at  once 
that  the  Old  Boys'  Match,  could  not  take  place  for  the 
ground  was  still  thickly  powdered  with  snow,  and  a  swept 
patch  proved  as  hard  and  slippery  as  the  slide  in  Heriot's 
quad.  This  slide  was  a  duly  authorised  institution,  in- 
dustriously swept  and  garnished  by  the  small  fry  of  the 
house  under  the  personal  supervision  of  old  Mother 
Sprawson,  who  sent  more  than  one  of  them  down  it  bare- 
foot, as  a  heroic  remedy  for  chilblains  rashly  urged  in 
excuse  for  absence.  Indeed  it  was  exceptionally  cold, 
even  for  a  nineteenth-century  December.  The  fire  in 
the  hall  was  twice  its  usual  size;  the  study  pipes  became 
too  hot  to  touch,  yet  remained  a  mockery  until  you  had 
your  tollies  going  as  well  and  every  chink  stopped  up. 
Sprawson  himself  was  understood  to  be  relying  more  than 
ever  on  his  surreptitious  flask;  but  as  he  never  betrayed 
the  ordinary  symptoms  of  indulgence,  except  before  a 
select  and  appreciative  audience,  and  could  sham  sober 
with  complete  success  whenever  necessary,  these  enter- 
tainments   were    more    droll    than    thrilling.      It    was 

123 


124  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Sprawson,  however,  who  lit  up  the  slide  with  tollies  after 
lock-up  on  the  last  night,  and  kept  the  fun  fast  and 
furious  until  the  school  bell  rang  sharply  through  the 
frost,  and  the  quad  opened  to  dispatch  its  quota  of  glowing 
faces  to  prize-giving  in  the  big  schoolroom. 

The  break-up  concert  had  been  given  there  the  night 
before;  but  the  final  function  was  more  exciting,  with  the 
Head  Master  beaming  behind  a  barricade  of  emblazoned 
volumes,  the  new  school  list  in  his  hand.  It  was  fascina- 
ting to  learn  the  new  order  form  by  form,  and  quite 
stirring  to  hear  and  abet  the  thunders  of  applause  as  the 
prize-winners  went  steaming  up  for  their  books  and  came 
back  with  them  almost  at  a  run.  Crabtree  was  the  only 
one  whom  Jan  clapped  heartily;  he  was  top  of  his  form 
as  usual,  as  was  Devereux  lower  down  the  school,  but 
Jan  was  not  going  to  be  seen  applauding  Evan  unduly. 
Chips  could  not  keep  still  when  it  came  to  the  Middle 
Remove,  and  even  Jan  sat  up  with  a  tight  mouth  then. 
On  their  places  depended  their  chance  of  a  remove  out  of 
the  clutches  of  old  Haigh.  And  Jan  was  higher  than  he 
expected  to  be,  but  Chips  was  higher  still,  with  the 
Shocker  and  Jane  Eyre  just  above  him,  and  Buggins  the 
lowest  of  the  group. 

"I  wish  to  blazes  old  Haigh  would  hop  it  in  the 
holidays.  Tiger,"  said  Buggins,  and  actually  thrust  his 
arm  through  Jan's  on  their  way  back  through  the  snow. 
"You  and  I  may  have  another  term  of  the  greaser  if  he 
don't." 

Jan  said  little,  but  it  was  not  because  he  was  particu- 
larly surprised  at  the  sudden  friendliness  of  an  inveterate 
foe.  Everybody  was  friendly  on  the  last  day.  Jane  Eyre 
was  profuse  in  his  hospitality  at  tea.  Shockley  himself 
had  borrowed  a  bit  of  string  that  he  would  certainly  have 
seized  a  week  ago;  as  for  Chips,  he  had  already  presented 


A  MERRY  CHRISTMAS  125 

Jan  with  a  German-silver  pencil-case  out  of  his  journey 
money.  And  what  made  these  signs  so  remarkable  was 
that  Jan  himself  had  never  been  more  glum  than  during 
the  last  days  of  the  term,  when  all  the  rest  were  packing 
or  looking  up  trains,  and  talking  about  their  people  and 
all  they  were  going  to  do  at  home,  and  making  Jan 
realise  that  he  had  no  home  and  no  people  to  call  his 
own. 

That  was  not  perhaps  a  very  fair  or  a  grateful  way 
of  putting  it,  even  to  himself;  but  Jan  had  some  excuse 
for  the  bitterness  of  his  heart.  He  had  not  received 
above  three  letters  from  the  rectory  in  all  these  thirteen 
weeks;  the  poverty  of  his  correspondence  had  in  fact 
become  notorious,  because  he  soon  ceased  looking  for  a 
letter,  and  when  there  was  one  for  him  it  lay  on  the 
window-sill  until  some  fellow  told  him  it  was  there. 
This  circumstance  had  provided  the  chivalrous  Shockley 
with  yet  another  taunt.  Then  that  occasional  letter  never 
by  any  chance  enclosed  a  post-office  order,  or  heralded  a 
hamper  on  its  way  by  rail;  and  Jan  had  brought  so 
little  with  him  in  the  first  instance,  in  the  way  either 
of  eatables  or  of  pocket-money,  that  a  time  had  come  when 
he  flatly  refused  Chips's  potted-meat  because  he  saw  no 
chance  of  ever  having  anything  to  offer  him  in  return. 
These  of  course  had  been  among  the  minor  troubles  of  the 
term;  but  they  were  the  very  ones  a  fellow's  people 
might  have  foreseen  and  remedied,  if  they  had  really  been 
his  people,  or  cared  for  a  moment  to  do  the  thing 
properly  while  they  were  about  it.  But  all  they  had 
done  wks  to  write  three  times  to  remind  him  of  their 
charity  in  doing  the  thing  at  all,  and  to  impress  upon 
him  what  a  chance  in  life  he  was  getting  all  through 
them  I  That  again  was  only  Jan's  view  of  their  letters, 
.  and  was  perhaps  as  ungrateful  and  unfair  as  bis  whole 


126  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

instinctive  feeling  towards  his  mother's  family;  but  it 
was  strong  enough  to  make  him  more  than  ever  the 
pariah  at  heart  when  he  came  down  from  dormitory  on  the 
last  morning,  in  his  unaccustomed  bowler  (but  not  the 
"loud  tie"  of  all  the  bigger  fellows),  and  partook  of  the 
meat  breakfast  provided  in  the  gaslit  hall;  and  so  out 
into  the  chilling  twilight,  to  squeeze  into  some  omnibus 
because  he  had  failed  to  take  Chips's  advice  and  order  a 
trap  in  the  middle  of  the  term. 

Jan's  journey  was  all  across  country,  and  long  before 
the  end  he  had  shaken  oS  the  last  of  his  schoolfellows 
travelling  in  the  same  direction.  It  happened  that  he 
knew  very  few  of  that  contingent  even  by  name,  and  yet 
he  was  sorry  when  they  had  all  been  left  behind;  they 
were  the  last  links  with  a  place  where  he  now  realised 
that  he  felt  more  at  home  than  he  was  ever  likely  to  feel 
in  the  holidays.  Eventually  he  reached  a  bleak  rural 
station,  where  there  was  nothing  to  meet  him,  and  walked 
up  to  the  rectory,  leaving  casual  instructions  about  his 
luggage. 

It  was  not  a  pleasant  walk;  there  had  evidently  been 
more  snow  in  Norfolk  than  at  school,  and  it  had  started 
to  thaw  while  Jan  was  in  the  train.  The  snow  stuck  to 
his  boots,  and  the  cold  was  far  more  penetrating  than  it 
had  seemed  during  the  frost.  The  rectory,  however,  was 
the  nearest  point  of  the  thatched  and  straggling  hamlet  of 
which  it  was  also  the  manor  house.  It  stood  in  its  own 
park,  a  mile  and  more  from  the  vast  flint  church  in  which 
a  handful  of  people  were  lost  at  its  two  perfunctory 
services  a  week.  The  rector  was  in  fact  more  squire  than 
parson,  though  he  wore  a  white  tie  as  often  as  not,  and 
conducted  a  forbidding  form  of  family  prayer  every  week- 
day of  his  life.  He  chanced  to  be  the  first  person  whom 
Jan  saw  in  the  grounds,  on  the  sweep  of  the  drive 


A  MERRY  CHRISTMAS  127 

between  house  and  lawn.  On  the  lawn  itself  a  lady  and 
a  number  of  children  were  busy  making  a  snow-man; 
and  the  old  gentleman,  watching  with  amusement  from 
the  swept  gravel,  cut  for  the  moment  a  sympathetic  figure 
enough.  Jan  had  to  pass  so  close  that  he  felt  bound  to 
go  up  and  report  his  return;  but  no  one  seemed  to  see 
him,  which  made  it  awkward.  He  had  been  for  some 
moments  almost  at  the  rector's  elbow,  too  shy  to  announce 
himself  in  words,  when  the  lady  came  smiling  across  the 
snow. 

"Surely  this  is  Jan,  papa?"  she  said,  whereupon  the 
rector  turned  round  and  exclaimed:  "Why,  my  good 
fellow,  when  did  you  turn  up?" 

Jan  succeeded  in  explaining  that  he  had  just  walked 
up  from  the  station;  then  there  was  another  awkward 
interval,  in  which  his  grandfather  took  open  stock  of  him, 
with  quite  a  different  face  from  that  which  had  beamed 
upon  the  children  in  the  snow.  The  lady  made  amends 
with  a  readier  and  heartier  hand,  and  a  kind  smile  into 
the  bargain. 

"I'm  your  Aunt  Alice,"  she  announced,  "and  these 
little  people  are  all  your  cousins.  We've  come  for 
Christmas,  so  you'll  have  plenty  of  time  to  get  to  know 
each  other." 

Clearly  there  was  no  time  then;  the  children  were 
already  clamouring  for  their  mother's  return  to  the  work 
in  hand,  and  she  rejoined  them  with  a  meek  alacrity  that 
told  its  tale.  Jan  did  not  know  whether  to  go  or  stay, 
until  the  rector  relieved  him  by  observing,  "If  you  want 
anything  to  eat  they'll  look  after  you  indoors;"  and  Jan 
accepted  his  dismissal  thankfully,  though  he  felt  its  cold 
abruptness  none  the  less.  But  the  old  man  had  been  curt 
and  chilling  to  him  from  the  first  moment  of  their  first 
meeting,  and  throughout  these  holidays  it  was  to  remain 


128  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

evident  that  he  took  no  sort  of  interest  in  the  schooling 
which  it  was  his  arbitrary  whim  to  provide.  Nor  would 
Jan  have  minded  this  for  a  moment — for  it  was  nothing 
new — if  he  had  not  caught  such  a  very  different  old 
fellow  smiling  on  the  other  grandchildren  in  the  snow. 

His  grandmother  went  to  the  opposite  extreme;  she 
took  only  too  much  notice  of  the  lad,  for  it  was  notice 
of  a  most  embarrassing  kind.  Her  duty  towards  Jan,  as 
she  conceived  it,  was  to  supplement  the  Public  School  in 
turning  him  out  as  much  of  a  gentleman  as  was  possible 
at  this  advanced  stage  of  his  development.  Mrs.  Ambrose 
began  the  holidays  by  searching  through  her  spectacles  for 
the  first  term's  crop  of  visible  improvements.  Very  few 
were  brought  to  light  by  this  method;  but  a  number  of 
inveterate  blemishes  were  found  to  have  survived,  and 
each  formed  a  subject  of  summary  stricture  as  it  re- 
appeared. Mrs.  Ambrose  was  one  of  those  formidable  old 
ladies  whom  no  exigencies  of  time  or  place  can  restrain 
from  saying  exactly  what  they  think.  Jan  could  not 
come  into  a  room,  but  her  spectacles  dogged  his  footsteps, 
and  he  was  always  liable  to  be  turned  back  on  the 
threshold  "to  wipe  them  properly*';  if  he  had  changed 
his  boots,  his  fingers  and  nails  came  in  for  scrutiny 
instead,  or  it  might  be  his  collar  or  his  hair.  He  seldom 
sat  at  table  without  hearing  that  he  had  used  the  wrong 
fork,  or  that  knives  were  not  made  to  enter  mouths,  even 
with  cheese  upon  their  point.  As  in  the  case  of  his 
reception  by  the  rector,  the  lad  would  have  been  much 
less  resentful  if  the  other  grandchildren  had  not  been 
present,  and  their  equally  glaring  misdemeanours 
consistently  overlooked;  he  did  not  realise  that  the 
old  lady's  sight  was  failing,  and  that  she  deliberately  had 
him  next  her  "for  his  own  good." 

He  disliked  the  other  grandchildren  none  the  less,  but 


A  MERRY  CHRISTMAS  129 

chiefly  because  his  Aunt  Alice  was  the  one  member  of  the 
party  whom  he  really  did  like,  and  they  would  never  let 
him  have  a  word  with  her.  They  were  the  most  whining, 
selfish,  exacting  little  wretches;  and  their  father  spent 
most  of  his  time  shooting  with  another  uncle,  a  soldier  son 
of  the  house,  and  left  the  whole  onus  of  correction  to  dear 
uncomplaining  Aunt  Alice.  But  now  and  then  Jan  got 
her  to  himself;  and  her  gentle  influence  might  have 
sweetened  all  the  holidays  if  her  eldest  had  not  celebrated 
the  New  Year  by  nearly  putting  out  Jan's  eye  with  a 
snowball  containing  a  lump  of  gravel.  Now,  Jan  was 
externally  good-tempered  and  long-suffering  with  his  small 
cousins,  but  on  this  occasion  he  told  the  offender  exactly 
what  he  thought  of  him,  in  schoolboy  terms. 

**I  don't  care  what  you  think,"  retorted  the  child,  who 
was  quite  old  enough  to  be  at  a  preparatory  school  but 
had  refused  to  go  to  one.  "Who  are  you  to  call  a  thing 
'caddish'?  You're  only  a  stable-boy — I  heard  Daddy 
say  so!" 

Jan  promptly  committed  the  unpardonable  sin  of 
"bullying"  by  smacking  the  head  of  "a  boy  not  half  your 
size."  It  was  no  use  his  repeating  in  his  own  defence 
what  the  small  boy  had  said  to  him.  "And  so  you  are!" 
cried  his  poor  Aunt  Alice,  mixing  hysterical  tears  with 
her  first-born's  passionate  flood.  And  coming  from  those 
gentle  lips,  the  words  cut  Jan  to  the  heart,  for  he  could 
not  see  that  the  poor  soul  was  not  a  reasonable  being 
where  her  children  were  concerned;  he  only  saw  that  it 
was  no  use  his  trying  to  justify  his  conduct  for  a  moment. 
Everybody  was  against  him.  His  grandfather  threatened 
him  with  a  horse-whipping;  his  grandmother  said  it  was 
"high  time  school  began  again";  and  Jan  broke  his 
sullen  silence  to  echo  the  sentiment  rudely  enough.  He 
had  to  spend   the  rest  of   that  day  in  his  own  room. 


130  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

and  to  support  a  further  period  of  ostracism  until  the 
mihtary  uncle's  return  from  a  country-house  visit.  The 
military  uncle,  being  no  admirer  of  his  younger  nephews 
and  nieces,  took  a  seditious  view  of  the  heinous  offence 
reported  to  him  by  the  ladies,  and  backed  it  by  tipping 
the  offender  a  furtive  half-sovereign  at  the  earliest  oppor- 
tunity. 

*'  I'm  afraid  you've  been  having  a  pretty  poor  time  of 
it,"  said  Captain  Ambrose;  "but  take  my  advice  and 
don't  treat  little  swabs  spoiling  for  school  as  though  you'd 
actually  got  'em  there.  They'll  get  there  in  time,  thank 
the  Lord,  and  I  wouldn't  be  in  their  little  breeches  then! 
Found  something  good  to  read?" 

"I'm  not  reading,"  said  Jan,  displaying  the  book 
which  had  occupied  him  in  his  disgrace.  "I'm  learning 
'The  Burial-March  of  Dundee.'  " 

"That  sounds  cheerful,"  remarked  the  captain.  "So 
they  give  you  saying-lessons  for  holiday  tasks  at  your 
school?" 

"  I  can't  say  what  they  do,"  replied  Jan.  "  There's 
no  holiday  task  these  holidays;  this  is  something  special." 

And  he  explained  what  without  much  hesitation,  and 
likewise  why  and  wherefore  under  friendly  pressure  from 
the  gallant  captain,  whose  sympathetic  attitude  was 
making  another  boy  of  Jan,  but  whose  views  were  more 
treasonable  than  ever  on  the  matter  of  the  vindictive 
punishment  meted  out  by  Haigh. 

"But  I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing  in  my  Hfe!" 
cried  he.  "A  master  spoil  a  boy's  holidays  for  something 
he's  done  at  school?  It's  perfectly  monstrous,  if  not 
illegal,  and  if  I  were  you  I  wouldn't  learn  a  line  of  it." 

"I  doubt  I've  learnt  very  near  every  line  already," 
responded  Jan,  shamefacedly.  "And  there's  a  hundred 
and  eighty-eight  altogether." 


A  MERRY  CHRISTMAS  131 

"A  hundred  and  eighty-eight  lines  in  the  Christmas 
holidays  I  I  should  like  to  have  seen  any  of  our  old 
Eton  beaks  come  a  game  like  that!" 

"  He  said  he'd  tell  Jerry  if  either  of  us  makes  a  single 
mistake  when  we  get  back." 

"Let  him!  Thrale's  an  O.E.  himself,  and  one  of  the 
very  best;  let  your  man  go  to  him  if  he  likes,  and  see  if 
he  comes  away  without  a  flea  in  his  ear.  Anyhow  you 
shan't  hang  about  the  house  to  learn  another  line  while 
I'm  here;  out  you  come  with  me,  and  try  a  blow  at  a 
bird!" 

So  after  all  Jan  had  a  few  congenial  days,  in  which 
he  slew  his  first  pheasant  and  conceived  a  secret  devotion 
to  his  Uncle  Dick,  who  occasionally  missed  a  difiicult 
shot,  but  never  a  single  opportunity  of  encouraging  a 
young  beginner.  Now  encouragement  in  any  direction 
was  what  Jan  needed  even  more  than  open  sympathy  and 
affection;  and  a  natural  quickness  of  hand  and  eye 
enabled  him  to  repay  the  pains  which  were  bestowed 
upon  him.  Captain  Ambrose  told  his  mother  they  would 
make  something  of  the  boy  yet,  if  they  did  not  worry  him 
too  much  about  trifles,  and  he  only  wished  his  own  leave 
could  last  all  the  holidays.  But  he  had  to  go  about  the 
middle  of  January,  a  few  days  after  Aunt  Alice  and  her 
party,  and  Jan  had  a  whole  dreary  week  to  himself  after 
that.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  he  spent  much  of  the  time 
in  solitary  prowling  with  a  pipe  and  tobacco  bought  out 
of  Uncle  Dick's  tip.  Of  course  he  had  learnt  to  smoke 
in  his  stable  days,  and,  unlike  most  boys,  he  genuinely 
enjoyed  the  practice;  at  any  rate  a  pipe  passed  the  time, 
albeit  less  nobly  than  a  gun;  but  he  was  not  allowed  to 
shoot  alone,  and  his  grandfather  never  took  him  out,  or 
showed  the  slightest  interest  in  his  daily  existence  under 
the  rectory  roof.    His  grandmother,  however,  continued 


132  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

to  equalise  matters  with  such  unwearied  fault-finding,  and 
so  many  calls  to  order  in  the  course  of  every  day,  that  the 
end  of  the  holidays  found  Jan  longing  for  the  privacy  of 
his  unsightly  little  study  at  school,  and  for  a  life  in  which 
at  all  events  there  were  no  old  ladies  and  no  little 
children. 

He  was  therefore  anything  but  overjoyed  when  a 
telegraph-boy  tramped  up  through  the  heavy  snow  of 
what  should  have  been  the  eve  of  his  return  to  school, 
with  a  telegram  to  say  that  the  line  was  blocked  and  it 
was  no  use  his  starting  till  the  day  after  to-morrow. 
Some  four  hundred  of  these  telegrams  had  been  hurriedly 
dispatched  from  the  school  to  the  four  quarters  of  Great 
Britain;  and  one  may  suppose  that  the  other  three 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  had  been  received  with  acclama- 
tion as  surprise  packets  of  rapture  and  reprieve.  But 
Jan  took  his  news,  not  indeed  without  a  smile,  but  with 
a  very  strange  one  for  a  boy  of  fifteen  on  the  verge  of  that 
second  term  which  is  notorious  for  all  the  hard  features  of 
a  first,  without  its  redeeming  novelty  and  excitement. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  NEW  TEAR 

Shockley,  Eyre  and  Carpenter  found  themselves  duly 
promoted  to  the  Lower  Fifth.  Rutter  and  Buggins  had 
failed  to  get  their  remove,  the  line  being  actually  drawn 
at  Jan,  who  therefore  was  left  official  captain  of  the 
Middle  Remove.  His  dismay  was  greater  than  he  would 
own  to  himself,  but  Chips  was  articulate  enough  for  two 
on  the  subject  of  their  separation  in  school  hours.  Jan, 
however,  was  less  depressed  about  that  than  at  the 
prospect  of  spending  most  of  his  time  in  the  same  class  as 
Evan  Devereux.  It  was  bad  enough  to  be  "hotted"  by 
Haigh,  but  how  much  worse  before  Master  Evan!  Jan 
felt  that  he  was  safe  to  make  a  bigger  fool  of  himself  than 
ever,  and  he  spent  the  first  morning  in  an  angry  glow, 
feeling  the  other's  eyes  upon  him,  and  wondering  what 
reports  would  go  home  about  him  now,  but  apparently 
forgetting  what  was  hanging  over  Chips  and  himself  at 
the  hands  of  Haigh. 

Chips,  however,  had  not  forgotten,  but  had  written  to 
Jan  about  the  matter  in  the  holidays,  without  receiving 
any  reply,  and  had  taxed  him  to  little  better  purpose  the 
moment  they  met.  It  was  impossible  to  tell,  from  a 
certain  dry,  somewhat  droll,  and  uncouthly  secretive 
demeanour,  in  part  product  of  his  Yorkshire  blood,  which 
made  Jan  very  irritating  when  he  chose  to  put  it  on, 

133 


134  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

whether  he  was  actually  word-perfect  in  "The  Burial- 
March  of  Dundee"  or  not.  This  was  Chips's  sole  anxiety, 
since  he  himself  had  left  nothing  to  chance,  when  he 
attended  Haigh  after  second  school  on  the  first  day,  and 
found  Jan  awaiting  him  with  impassive  face. 

"Now,  you  boys!'*  exclaimed  Haigh,  when  the  three 
of  them  had  his  hall  to  themselves.    "  Begin,  Carpenter." 

"'Sound   the   fife,  and   cry  the  slogan '"  began 

Chips,  more  fluently  than  most  people  read,  and  pro- 
ceeded without  a  hitch  for  sixteen  unfaltering  lines. 

"Rutter!"  interrupted  Haigh. 

But  Jan  made  no  response. 

"  Come,  come,  Rutter,"  said  Haigh,  with  an  unforeseen 
touch  of  compassionate  encouragement,  as  though  the 
holidays  had  softened  him  and  last  term's  hatchet  cried 
for  burial  with  Dundee.  "'Lol  we  bring  with  us  the 
hero*  " — and  in  the  old  snarl  after  a  pause:  "*LoI  we 
bring  the  conquering  Grseme?'  " 

But  even  this  prompting  drew  never  a  word  from 
Jan. 

"Give  him  another  lead.  Carpenter;"  and  this  time 
Chips  continued,  more  nervously,  but  not  less  accurately, 
down  to  the  end  of  the  first  long  stanza: 

"  Bade  us  strike  for  King  and  Country, 
Bade  us  win  the  field,  or  fall!'* 

"Now  then,  Rutter:  *On  the  heights  of  Killiecrankie' 
— come  on,  my  good  boy!" 

The  anxious  submissiveness  of  the  really  good  boy, 
with  the  subtle  flattery  conveyed  by  implicit  obedience 
to  an  overbearing  demand,  had  so  far  mollified  the  master 
that  Jan  was  evidently  to  have  every  chance.  But  he 
did  not  avail  himself  of  the  clemency  extended  by  so 
much  as  opening  his  mouth. 


THE  NEW  YEAR  135 

"Have  you  learnt  your  task,  or  have  you  not, 
Rutter?'* 

And  no  answer  even  to  that! 

"Sulky  brute!"  cried  Haigh,  with  pardonable  passion. 
"I  suppose  you  don't  remember  what  was  to  happen  if 
either  of  you  failed  to  discharge  the  penalty  of  your 
dishonesty  last  term?    But  you  remember,  Carpenter?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Carpenter,  you  may  go;  youVe  taken  your  punish- 
ment in  the  proper  spirit,  and  I  shall  not  mention  your 
name  if  I  can  help  it.  You,  Rutter,  will  hear  more  about 
the  matter  from  Mr.  Thrale  to-morrow." 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Jan,  breaking  silence  at  last, 
and  without  palpable  impertinence,  but  rather  with 
devout  sincerity.  Mr.  Haigh,  however,  took  his  aversion 
by  the  shoulders  and  ran  him  out  of  the  hall  in  Chips's 
wake. 

Chips  was  miserable  about  the  whole  affair.  He  made 
up  his  mind  either  to  immediate  expulsion  for  his  friend, 
or  such  public  degradation  as  would  bring  the  extreme 
penalty  about  by  hardening  an  already  obdurate  and 
perverse  heart.  The  worst  of  it  was  that  Jan  did  not 
treat  Chips  as  a  friend  in  the  matter,  would  not  talk 
about  it  on  the  hill  or  in  his  study,  or  explain  himself  any 
more  than  he  had  done  to  Mr.  Haigh.  The  one  consoling 
feature  of  the  case  was  that  only  the  two  boys  knew  any- 
thing at  all  about  its  latest  development;  and  Chips  was 
not  the  person  to  discuss  with  others  that  which  Jan 
declined  to  discuss  with  him. 

Next  day,  however,  in  his  new  form,  which  happened 
to  be  taken  by  the  master  who  had  the  Lodge,  there  was 
no  more  absent  mind  than  Carpenter's  as  second  school 
drew  to  an  end.  It  was  after  second  school  that  the 
day's  delinquents  were  flogged   by  the   Head   Master 


136  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

before  the  eyes  of  all  and  sundry  who  liked  to  peer 
through  the  diamond  panes  of  his  class-room  windows. 
Chips  had  to  pass  close  by  on  his  way  out  of  school;  but 
there  were  no  spectators  looking  on  outside,  no  old  gentle- 
man playing  judge  or  executioner  within.  In  response  to 
an  anxious  question  Chips  was  informed,  by  a  youth  who 
addressed  him  as  "my  good  man,"  that  even  old  Thrale 
didn't  start  flogging  on  the  second  day  of  a  term.  Instead 
of  being  relieved  by  the  information,  he  only  felt  more 
depressed,  having  heard  that  really  serious  cases  were  not 
taken  in  this  public  way  at  all,  but  privately  in  the  Head 
Master's  sanctum.  Chips  went  back  to  his  house  full  of 
dire  forebodings,  and  shut  himself  in  his  study  after  looking 
vainly  into  Jan's;  and  there  he  was  still  sitting  when  Jan's 
unmistakable  slipshod  step  brought  him  to  his  open  door. 

"Tiger!"  he  called  under  his  breath;  and  there  was 
a  world  of  interrogation  and  anxiety  in  his  voice. 

"What's  up  now?"  inquired  Jan,  coming  in  with  a 
sort  of  rough  swagger  foreign  to  his  habit,  though  Chips 
had  observed  it  once  or  twice  in  the  course  of  their 
confidential  relations. 

"  That's  what  I  want  to  know,"  said  he.  "  What  has 
happened?  What's  going  to  happen?  When  have  you 
got  to  say  it  by?" 

"I've  said  it." 

Chips  might  have  been  knocked  down  with  a  fledgling's 
feather. 

"  You've  said  your  Aytoun's  Lay  to  Haigh  ?  " 

"Without  a  mistake,"  said  Jan.  "I've  just  finished 
saying  it." 

"  But  when  on  earth  did  you  learn  it,  man  ? " 

"In  the  holidays." 

And  Jan  grinned  uncouth  superiority  to  the  other's 
stupefaction. 


THE  NEW  YEAR  137 

"Then  why  the  blazes  couldn't  you  say  it  yesterday?" 

"Because  I  wasn't  going  to!  He'd  no  right  to  set 
us  a  holiday  task  of  his  own  like  that;  he'd  a  right  to 
do  what  he  liked  to  us  here,  but  not  in  the  holidays,  and 
he  knew  it  jolly  well.  I  wanted  to  see  if  he'd  go  to  Jerry. 
I  thought  he  durs'n't,  but  he  did,  and  you  bet  the  old  man 
sent  him  away  with  a  flea  in  his  ear!  He  never  got  on 
to  me  all  second  school,  and  he  looked  another  chap  when 
he  told  me  that  Mr.  Thrale  said  I  was  to  be  kept  in 
till  I'd  learnt  what  I'd  got  to  learn.  It  was  the  least 
he  could  say,  if  you  ask  me,"  remarked  Jan,  with  a 
complacent  grin,  "and  Haigh  didn't  seem  any  too  pleased 
about  it.  So  then  I  said  I  thought  I  could  say  it  without 
being  kept  in,  just  to  make  him  sit  up  a  bit,  and  by  gum 
it  did!" 

"  But  he  heard  you.  Tiger  ?  " 

"He  couldn't  refuse,  and  I  got  through  without  a 
blooming  error." 

"  But  didn't  he  ask  you  what  it  all  meant  ?  " 

"No  fear!  He'd  too  much  sense;  but  he  knows  right 
enough.  Instead  of  him  sending  me  up  to  the  old  man, 
it  was  me  that  sent  him,  and  got  him  the  wigging  he 
deserved,  you  bet!" 

By  this  time  Chips  was  in  a  fever  of  enthusiastic 
excitement,  and  the  conclusion  of  the  matter  reduced 
him  to  a  mood  too  demonstrative  for  Jan's  outward  liking, 
however  much  it  might  cheer  his  secret  heart. 

"Tiger!"  was  all  Chips  could  cry,  as  he  wrung  the 
Tiger's  paw  perforce.  "  O,  Tiger,  Tiger,  you'll  be  the  hero 
of  the  house  when  this  gets  known!" 

"Don't  be  daft,"  replied  Jan  in  his  own  vernacular — 
under  no  restraint  in  Chips's  company.  "It's  nobody's 
business  but  yours  and  mine.  It  won't  do  me  any  good 
if  it  gets  all  over  the  place." 


138  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"It  won't  do  you  any  hann!"  said  Chips  eagerly. 

"  It  won't  do  me  any  good,"  persisted  Jan.  "  Haigh 
knows ;  that's  good  enough  for  me,  and  you  bet  it's  good 
enough  for  Haigh!" 

And  Chips  respected  his  friend  the  more  because  there 
was  no  bid  for  his  respect  in  Jan's  attitude,  and  he  seemed 
so  unconscious  of  the  opportunity  for  notoriety,  or  rather 
of  its  advantages  as  they  presented  themselves  to  the 
more  sophisticated  boy. 

"  But  who  put  you  up  to  it  ? "  inquired  Chips,  already 
vexed  with  his  own  docility  in  the  whole  matter  of  the 
Aytoun's  Lay;  it  would  be  some  comfort  to  find  that  the 
Tiger  had  not  thought  of  such  a  counterstroke  himself. 
And  the  Tiger  was  perfectly  candid  on  the  point,  setting 
forth  his  military  uncle's  views  with  much  simplicity,  and 
thereafter  singing  the  captain's  praises  in  a  fashion  worthy 
of  the  enthusiastic  Chips  himself. 

"What's  his  initials?"  exclaimed  that  inquirer  when 
the  surname  had  slipped  out. 

"R.  N.,  I  believe,"  replied  the  Tiger.  "I  know  they 
call  him  Dick." 

"R.  N.  it  is!"  cried  Chips,  and  stood  up  before  a  little 
row  of  green  and  red  volumes  in  his  shelves.  "  He's  the 
cricketer — must  be— did  he  never  tell  you  so  ? " 

"We  never  talked  about  cricket,"  said  Jan,  with 
unfeigned  indifference.  "  But  he  used  to  wear  cricketing 
ties,  now  you  remind  me.  One  was  green  and  black,  and 
another  was  half  the  colours  of  the  rainbow." 

"That's  the  I.  Z.,"  cried  Chips,  "and  here  we  have  the 
very  man  as  large  as  life!"  And  he  read  out  from  the 
green  Lillyivhite  of  a  bygone  day:  'Capt.  R.  N.  Ambrose 
(Eton),  M.C.C.  and  I.  Zingari.  With  a  little  more  first- 
class  cricket  would  have  been  one  of  the  best  bats  in 
England;   a  rapid  scorer  with  great  hitting  powers.'     I 


THE  NEW  YEAR  139 

should  think  he  was!  Why,  he  made  a  century  in  the 
Eton  and  Harrow;  it's  still  mentioned  when  the  match 
comes  round.  And  I've  got  to  tell  you  about  your  own 
uncle!" 

"It  only  shows  what  he  is,  not  to  have  told  me 
himself,"  said  Jan,  for  once  infected  with  the  other's 
enthusiasm.  "I  knew  he  was  a  captain  in  the  Rifle 
Brigade,  and  a  jolly  fine  chap,  but  that  was  all." 

"Well,  now  you  should  write  and  tell  him  how  you 
took  his  advice." 

"I'll  wait  and  see  how  it  comes  off  first,"  returned 
Jan,  with  native  shrewdness.  "I've  had  my  bit  of  fun, 
but  old  Haigh  has  the  term  before  him  to  get  on  to  me 
more  than  ever." 

Yet  on  the  whole  Jan  had  a  far  better  term  in  school 
than  he  expected.  If,  as  he  felt,  he  was  deservedly  deeper 
than  ever  in  the  master's  disesteem,  at  least  the  fact  was 
less  patent  and  its  expression  less  blatant  than  heretofore. 
Haigh  betrayed  his  old  animosity  from  time  to  time,  but 
he  no  longer  gave  it  free  rein.  He  gave  up  loading  Jan 
with  the  elaborate  abuse  of  a  trenchant  tongue,  and 
unnecessarily  exposing  his  ignorance  to  the  form.  He 
started  systematically  ignoring  him  instead,  treating  him 
as  a  person  who  seldom  existed,  and  was  not  to  be  taken 
seriously  when  he  did,  all  of  which  suited  the  boy  very 
well  without  hurting  him  in  the  least.  He  would  have 
been  genuinely  unmoved  by  a  more  convincing  display 
of  contempt  on  the  part  of  Mr,  Haigh ;  on  the  other  hand, 
he  often  caught  that  gentleman's  eye  upon  him,  and  there 
was  something  in  its  wary  glance  that  gave  the  Tiger  quite 
a  tigerish  satisfaction.  He  did  not  flatter  himself  that  the 
man  was  frightened  of  him,  though  such  was  in  a  sense 
the  case;  but  he  did  chuckle  over  the  thought  that  Haigh 
would  be  as  glad  to  be  shot  of  him  as  he  of  Haigb^ 


140  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

He  had  a  double  chuckle  when,  by  using  the  brains 
which  God  had  given  him,  and  thinking  for  himself 
against  all  the  canons  of  schoolboy  research,  he  would 
occasionally  go  to  the  top  of  the  class  at  a  bound,  as  in 
the  scarcely  typical  case  of  possunt  quia  posse  videntur. 
On  these  occasions  it  was  not  only  Haigh's  face  that  was 
worth  watching  as  he  gave  the  devil  his  due;  the  flushed 
cheeks  of  Master  Evan,  who  was  quick  to  acquire  but 
slower  to  apply,  who  nevertheless  was  nearly  always  top, 
and  hated  being  displaced,  were  another  sight  for  sore 
eyes.  And  Jan  was  sore  to  the  soul  about  Evan  Devereux, 
now  that  they  worked  together  but  seldom  spoke,  nor  ever 
once  went  up  or  down  the  hill  in  each  other's  company, 
though  that  was  just  when  Evan  was  at  his  best  and 
noisiest  with  a  gang  of  his  own  cronies. 

Jan  was  in  fact  unreasonably  jealous  and  bitter  at 
heart  about  Evan,  and  yet  grateful  to  him  too  for  holding 
his  tongue  as  he  evidently  was  doing;  better  never  speak 
to  a  chap  than  speak  about  him,  and  one  day  at  least  the 
silence  was  more  golden  than  speech.  Haigh  was  late, 
and  Buggins,  who  was  rather  too  friendly  with  Jan  now 
that  they  were  the  only  two  of  their  house  in  the  form, 
had  described  the  old  Tiger  as  his  "stable  companion." 
Evan  happened  to  be  listening.  He  saw  Rutter  look  at 
him.  His  eyes  dropped  at  once,  and  Rutter  in  turn  saw 
the  ready  flush  come  to  his  cheeks.  That  was  enough  for 
simple  Jan;  everything  was  forgiven  in  the  heart  that  so 
many  things  conspired  to  harden.  Evan  was  as  sensitive 
about  his  secret  as  he  was  himselfl 

One  thing,  however,  was  doing  Jan  a  lot  of  good  about 
this  time;  that  was  his  own  running  in  the  Mile.  It  was 
very  trying  for  him  to  find  himself  accounted  a  bit  of  a 
runner,  and  yet  just  too  old  for  the  Under  Fifteen  events; 
but  he  never  dreamt  of  entering  for  any  of  the  open  ones 


THE  NEW  YEAR  141 

until  Sprawson  gave  out  in  the  quad  that  he  had  put  that 
young  Tiger  down  for  the  Mile  and  Steeplechase.  Jan 
happened  to  be  crossing  the  quad  at  the  time;  he  could 
not  but  stop  and  stare,  whereupon  Sprawson  promised  him 
a  tremendous  licking  if  he  dared  to  scratch  or  run  below 
the  form  he  had  shown  in  last  tenn's  paper-chase. 

"Little  boys  who  can  run,  and  don't  want  to  run, 
must  be  made  to  run,"  said  Sprawson,  with  the  ferocious 
geniality  for  which  he  was  famed  and  feared. 

"  But  it's  All  Ages,"  protested  Jan  aghast.  "  I  shan't 
have  the  ghost  of  a  chance,  Sprawson." 

"We'll  see  about  that,  my  pippin!  It's  a  poor  en- 
try, and  some  who've  entered  won't  start,  with  all  this 
eye-rot  about."  The  pretty  reference  was  to  a  mild 
ophthalmic  affection  always  prevalent  in  the  school  this 
term.  "Don't  you  get  it  yourself  unless  you  want  some- 
thing worse,  and  don't  let  me  catch  you  making  a  beast 
of  yourself  with  cake  and  jam  every  day  of  your  life. 
Both  are  forbidden  till  further  orders,  and  ever  after  if 
you  don't  get  through  a  heat!  You've  got  to  go  into 
training.  Tiger,  and  come  out  for  runs  with  me." 

And  Jan  said  he  didn't  mind  doing  that,  and  Sprawson 
said  that  he  didn't  care  whether  he  minded  or  not,  but 
said  it  so  merrily  that  Jan  didn't  mind  that  either.  And 
away  the  two  of  them  would  trot  in  flannels  down  the 
Burston  road,  and  then  across  country  over  much  the 
same  ground  as  Chips  and  Jan  had  covered  on  their  first 
Sunday  walk,  and  would  get  back  glowing  in  time  for 
a  shower  before  school  or  dinner  as  the  case  might  be. 
But  Jan  had  to  endure  a  good  deal  of  "hustle"  about  it 
when  Sprawson  was  not  there,  and  offers  of  jam  from 
everybody  within  reach  (except  Chips)  at  breakfast  and 
tea,  until  Sprawson  came  over  from  the  Sixth  Form  table 
and  genially  undertook  to  crucify  the  next  man  who  tried 


142  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

to  nobble  his  young  colt.  Sprawson  would  boast  of 
the  good  example  he  himself  had  set  by  pawning  his 
precious  flask  until  the  Finals.  He  was  certainly  first 
favourite  for  both  the  Mile  and  the  Steeplechase,  in  one 
or  other  of  which  he  seemed  to  have  run  second  or  third 
for  years.  As  these  two  events  for  obscure  reasons 
obtained  more  marks  than  any  others,  and  as  the  great 
Charles  Cave  was  expected  to  render  a  characteristic 
account  of  himself  in  the  Hundred  and  the  Hurdles,  there 
was  a  strong  chance  of  adding  the  Athletic  Cup  to  the 
others  on  the  green  baize  shelf  in  Heriot's  hall.  It  might 
have  been  a  certainty  if  only  Jan  had  been  a  few  weeks 
younger  than  he  was.  As  it  was  he  felt  a  fool  when  he 
turned  out  to  run  off  his  first  heat  in  the  Mile;  his  only 
comfort  was  that  it  would  be  his  first  and  last;  but  he 
finished  third  in  spite  of  his  forebodings,  and  won  some 
applause  for  the  pluck  that  triumphed  over  tender  years 
and  an  ungainly  style. 

Chips  was  jubilant,  and  Joyce  vied  with  Buggins 
in  impious  congratulations.  The  Shocker  volunteered 
venomous  advice  about  not  putting  on  a  "roll"  which 
only  existed  in  his  own  nice  mind.  Heriot  said  a 
good  word  for  the  performance  in  front  of  the  fire  after 
prayers.  And  Sprawson  took  the  credit  with  unctuous 
humour,  but  had  allowed  his  man  jam  that  night  at  tea. 
"  Now,  you  fellows  who  were  so  keen  on  giving  him  some 
before;  now's  your  chance!"  said  Sprawson.  And  Chips's 
greengage  proved  the  winning  brand,  though  Jane  Eyre's 
fleshpot  was  undoubtedly  a  better  offer  which  it  went  hard 
to  decline  with  embarrassed  acknowledgments.  Neither 
Sprawson  nor  anybody  else,  however,  expected  his  young 
colt  to  get  a  place  in  the  second  round.  But  by  this  time 
the  field  was  fairly  decimated  by  "eye-rot,"  and  again 
Jan  ran   third;    and   third   for  the   third   time  in   the 


THE  NEW  YEAR  143 

Semi-final;  so  that  Sprawson's  young  'un  of  fifteen  and  a 
bit  actually  found  himself  in  for  the  Final  with  that 
worthy  and  four  other  young  men  with  bass  voices  and 
budding  moustachios. 

Not  that  Jan  looked  so  much  younger  than  the  rest 
when  they  stripped  and  toed  the  line  together.  He  was 
beginning  to  shoot  up,  and  his  muscles  were  prematurely 
developed  by  his  old  life  in  the  stable-yard;  indeed, 
his  arms  had  still  a  faintly  weather-beaten  hue,  from 
long  years  of  rolled-up  sleeves,  in  comparison  with  the 
others.  Again  his  was  the  only  jersey  without  the 
trimming  or  the  star  of  one  or  other  of  the  football  fifteens. 
And  his  ears  looked  rather  more  prominent  than  usual, 
and  much  redder  in  a  strong  west  wind. 

The  quartette  from  other  houses  were  Dodds  (who  fell 
on  Diamond  Hill),  Greenhill  (already  running  an  exalted 
career  in  black  gaiters),  Sproule  and  Imeson  (on  whom  a 
milder  light  has  shone  less  fitfully).  Poor  Dodds  (as  you 
may  read  in  that  year's  volume  of  the  Magazine)  "  directly 
after  the  start  began  to  make  the  pace,  showing  good 
promise  if  he  had  been  able  to  keep  it  up.  By  the  end  of 
the  first  round  he  had  got  a  good  long  way  ahead.  Imeson, 
however,  stuck  pretty  near  him,  and  the  rest  followed 
with  an  interval  of  some  yards.  Dodds,  Imeson,  and 
Sproule  was  the  order  maintained  for  the  first  three 
rounds.  Towards  the  end  of  the  second  round,  however, 
Dodds  began  to  show  signs  of  distress,  and  he  was 
observed  to  begin  to  limp,  owing  to  an  old  strain  in  his 
leg  getting  worse  again  with  the  exertion.  Then  Imeson, 
and  Sproule,  closely  followed  by  Sprawson,  began  to  gain 
fast  on  him."  (Observe  how  long  before  the  born  miler 
creeps  into  prominence  and  print!)  "At  this  point  the 
race  began  to  get  very  exciting,  intense  interest  being 
manifested  when,  about  the  middle  of  the  fourth  round, 


144  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Sproule  and  Imeson,  who  had  gradually  been  lessening 
the  distance  between  themselves  and  Dodds,  now  passed 
him;  Sprawson  too  was  coming  up  by  degrees,  and  had 
evidently  been  reserving  his  pace  for  the  end,  having 
passed  Dodds,  he  made  up  the  ground  between  himself 
and  Sproule,  and  passing  him  before  the  last  corner,  got 
abreast  of  Imeson.  Both  of  them  had  a  splendid  spurt 
left,  especially  Sprawson,  who  had  gained  a  great  deal  in 
the  last  half  round,  and  now  passed  Imeson,  breaking  the 
tape  four  or  five  yards  ahead  of  him.  Sproule  was  a  good 
third,  closely  followed  by  Rutter,  who  had  run  very  phickily 
and  had  a  gallant  wind." 

Italics  are  surely  excused  by  the  extreme  youth  of  him 
whom  they  would  celebrate  after  all  these  years.  They 
do  not  appear  in  the  original  account;  let  us  requite  the 
past  writer  where  we  can.  He  is  not  known  to  have 
followed  the  literary  calling,  but  his  early  fondness  for 
a  "round,"  in  preference  to  the  usual  "lap,"  suggests 
a  quartogenarian  whom  the  mere  scribe  would  not 
willingly  offend. 

There  are  some  things  that  he  leaves  out  perforce. 
There  is  no  mention  of  Jan's  unlovely,  dogged,  flat-footed 
style,  of  which  Sprawson  himself  could  not  cure  his  young 
'un,  while  the  extreme  brilliance  of  his  ears  at  the  finish 
was  naturally  immune  from  comment.  Posterity  has  not 
been  vouchsafed  a  picture  of  the  yelling,  chaffing  horde  of 
schoolboys;  but  posterity  can  see  the  same  light-hearted 
crowd  to-morrow,  only  in  collars  not  invented  in  those 
days,  and  straw  hats  in  place  of  the  little  black  caps  with 
the  red  creased  badges.  The  very  lists  are  twice  their 
ancient  size,  and  the  young  knights  no  longer  enter  them 
in  cricket-trousers  tucked  into  their  socks  as  in  simpler 
times.  It  may  be  that  preliminary  heats  do  not  spread 
over  as  many  weeks  as  tliey  did,  that  it  was  necessary  to 


THE  NEW  YEAR  145 

make  the  most  of  them  in  the  days  before  boxing  and 
hockey.  But  it  is  good  to  think  that  one  custom  is  still 
kept  up,  at  all  events  in  the  house  that  once  was  Heriot's. 
When  a  boy  has  got  his  colours  for  cricket  or  football,  or 
gained  marks  for  his  house  in  athletics,  that  night  at  tea 
the  captain  of  the  house  says  "Well  played,"  or  "Well 
run,  So-and-So!"  And  over  sixty  sounding  palms  clap 
that  hero  loud  and  long. 

On  the  night  of  the  Mile  it  was  old  Mother  Sprawson, 
who  looked  round  to  the  long  table  in  the  middle  of  the 
uproar  in  his  honour,  and  himself  shouted  something  that 
very  few  could  hear.  But  Chips  always  swore  that  it  was 
"Well  run.  Tiger!'*  And  although  there  were  no  marks 
for  fourth  place,  it  is  certain  that  for  the  moment  the  row 
redoubled. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    HAUNTED    HOUSE 

Next  day  was  a  Saint's  Day,  which  you  had  to  yourself 
in  the  good  old  times  from  chapel  in  the  early  forenoon 
till  private  work  after  tea.  Jan  had  just  come  out  of 
chapel,  and  was  blinking  in  the  bright  spring  sunlight, 
when  of  a  sudden  his  blood  throbbed  more  than  the  Mile 
had  made  it.  Evan  Devereux  had  broken  away  from 
some  boon  companions,  and  was  gaily  smiling  in  Jan's 
path. 

"I  say,  I  do  congratulate  you  on  yesterday  I  Every- 
body's talking  about  it.  I  meant  to  speak  to  you  before. 
That's  the  worst  of  being  in  different  houses;  we  never 
see  anything  of  each  other,  even  now  we're  in  the  same 
form." 

The  boy  is  an  artless  animal;  here  were  two,  and  the 
second  simpleton  outshining  the  first  in  beams  of  pure 
good-will. 

"That  can't  be  helped,"  said  Jan,  with  intentionally 
reassuring  cordiality,  so  that  Master  Evan  should  not 
think  he  was,  or  possibly  could  have  been,  offended  for  a 
single  instant. 

"Still,  I  don't  see  why  we  shouldn't  help  it  for  once," 
responded  Evan,  looking  the  other  rather  frankly  up  and 
down.  "There's  nothing  on  this  morning,  except  the 
final  of  the  School  Fives,  is  there?  Why  shouldn't  we 
go  for  a  stroll  together?" 

146 


THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE  147 

Darkness  descended  upon  beaming  Jan  like  funeral 
pall  on  festal  board.  "  I — I — I'd  promised  another  chap," 
he  almost  groaned,  with  equal  loyalty  and  reluctance. 

*'What  other  chap?" 

Was  it  contempt  in  Evan's  tone,  or  merely  dis- 
appointment ? 

"  Carpenter  in  our  house." 

"Chips  Carpenter!  I  know  him  well;  we  were  at 
the  same  old  school  before  this.  I  never  see  enough  of 
him  either.     Let's  all  go  together." 

But  Jan  was  not  through  his  diflSculty  yet.  "We 
were  going  to  the  haunted  house,"  he  explained  in  a 
lower  key.     "  It's  an  old  arrangement." 

"The  haunted  house!"  exclaimed  Evan  in  a  half-tone 
between  approval  and  disapproval.  "I  never  heard  of 
one  here." 

"It's  a  couple  of  miles  away.  They  only  say  it's 
haunted.     We  thought  we'd  have  a  look  and  see." 

"But  is  it  in  bounds?"  inquired  Evan,  with  some 
anxiety. 

"I  should  hope  so,"  replied  Jan,  unscrupulously. 
"But  here's  Chips;  you  ask  him." 

Devereux,  however,  despite  his  law-abiding  instincts, 
was  not  the  one  to  draw  back  when  two  were  for  going  on. 
He  was  an  excitable  boy  with  a  fund  of  high  spirits,  but 
not  an  infinity;  they  ran  out  sometimes  when  least 
expected.  This  morning,  however,  he  was  at  his  best,  and 
incomparably  better  company  than  either  of  his  com- 
panions. Jan  was  shy  and  awkward,  though  his  soul 
sang  with  pride  and  pleasure.  But  Chips  the  articulate, 
Chips  the  loquacious.  Chips  the  irrepressible  in  congenial 
company,  had  least  of  all  to  say,  except  in  the  bitterness 
of  his  own  heart  against  the  boy  who  had  usurped  his 
place. 


148  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"  He's  hardly  spoken  to  either  of  us,"  Chips  was  saying 
to  himself,  "since  the  very  beginning  of  our  first  term; 
and  I  should  like  to  have  seen  him  now,  if  the  Tiger  hadn't 
finished  fourth  in  the  Mile!" 

The  worst  of  the  enthusiastic  temperament  is  that  it 
lends  itself  to  cynicism  almost  as  readily,  and  vice  versa  as 
in  Jan's  case  now.  Jan  also  had  felt  often  very  bitter 
about  Evan,  if  not  exactly  against  him,  yet  here  he  was 
basking  in  the  boy's  first  tardy  and  almost  mercenary 
smile.  But  Jan's  case  was  peculiar,  as  we  know;  and 
everything  nice  had  come  together,  filling  his  empty  cup 
to  overflowing.  He  might  despise  public-school  traditions 
as  much  as  he  pretended  for  Chips's  benefit,  but  he  was 
too  honest  to  affect  indifference  to  his  little  succbs  d'estime 
of  the  day  before.  He  knew  it  was  not  little  for  his  age. 
He  would  have  confessed  it  some  consolation  for  being  at 
school  against  his  will — ^but  it  was  not  against  his  will 
that  he  was  walking  with  Master  Evan  on  equal  terms 
this  fine  spring  morning.  He  had  always  seen  that  the 
making  or  the  marring  of  his  school  life  lay  in  Evan's 
power.  It  had  not  been  marred  as  it  might  have  been  by 
a  cruel  or  a  thoughtless  tongue;  it  might  still  be  made  by 
kind  words  and  even  an  occasional  show  of  equality  by 
one  whom  Jan  never  treated  as  an  equal  in  his  thoughts. 
He  was  nervous  as  they  trod  the  hilly  roads,  but  he  was 
intensely  happy.  Spring  was  in  the  bold  blue  sky,  and 
in  the  hedgerows  faintly  sprayed  with  green — less  faintly 
if  you  looked  at  them  aslant — and  in  Jan's  heart  too. 
Spring  birds  were  singing,  and  Evan  bubbHng  like  a 
brook  with  laughter  and  talk  of  home  and  the  holidays 
that  Jan  knew  all  about;  yet  never  a  word  to  let  poor 
Chips  into  the  secret  of  their  old  relations,  or  even  to  set 
him  wondering.  Any  indiscretion  of  that  sort  was  by  way 
of  falling  from  Jan  himself. 


THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE  149 

"Do  you  ever  see  the  Miss  Christies  now?"  he  had 
inadvertently  inquired. 

"The  Christies!"  Evan  exclaimed,  emphatically,  and 
not  without  a  sidelong  glance  at  Carpenter.  "  Oh,  yes,  the 
girls  skated  on  our  pond  all  last  holidays.  Phyllis  can  do 
the  outside  edge  backwards." 

"She  would,"  said  Jan.  "I  doubt  you're  too  big  for 
Fanny  now?" 

Fanny  had  been  Evan's  pony,  on  which  he  had  ridden  a 
great  deal  with  his  friends  the  Christies;  hence  the  some- 
what dangerous  association  of  ideas.  He  said  he  now 
rode  one  of  the  horses,  when  he  rode  at  all.  His  tone 
closed  that  side  of  the  subject. 

"Do  you  remember  how  you  used  to  hoist  a  flag,  the 
first  day  of  the  holidays,  to  let  the  young — to  let  the  girls 
know  you'd  got  back?" 

Evan  turned  to  Carpenter  with  a  forced  laugh.  "All 
these  early  recollections  must  be  pretty  boring  for  you," 
said  he.  "But  this  chap  and  I  used  to  know  each  other 
at  home." 

"I  wish  we  did  now,"  said  Jan.  "There's  nobody  to 
speak  to  down  in  Norfolk." 

"Except  R.  N.  Ambrose,"  put  in  Chips,  dryly.  "I 
suppose  you  know  that's  his  uncle?" 

Devereux  did  not  know  it,  and  the  information  was 
opportune  in  every  way.  It  reminded  him  that  Mrs. 
Rutter  had  been  a  lady,  and  it  reminded  Jan  himself  that 
all  his  people  had  not  sprung  from  the  stables.  It 
made  him  distinctly  less  liable  to  say  "  the  Miss  Christies" 
or  "Master  Evan."  Above  all  it  introduced  the  general 
topic  of  cricket,  in  which  Chips  and  his  statistics  got  a 
chance  at  last,  so  that  in  argument  alone  a  mile  went  like 
the  wind.  Chips  could  have  gained  full  marks  in  any 
paper  set  on  the  row  of  green  and  red  booklets  in  his 


150  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

shelves.  He  was  a  staunch  upholder  of  Middlesex  cricket, 
but  Jan  and  Evan  were  Yorkshire  to  the  marrow,  and  one 
of  them  at  least  was  glad  to  be  heart  and  soul  with  the 
other  in  the  discussion  that  followed.  It  was  not  a  little 
heated  as  between  Carpenter  and  Devereux  and  it  lasted 
the  trio  until  they  tramped  almost  into  the  straggling  and 
deserted  street  of  the  village  famous  for  its  haunted  house. 

"I  suppose  it's  at  the  other  end  of  the  village.  We 
shan't  see  it  yet  a  bit." 

Jan  spoke  with  the  bated  breath  and  sparkling  eye  of 
the  born  adventurer;  and  Chips  whispered  volubly  of 
ghosts  in  general;  but  Evan  Devereux  became  silent  for 
the  first  time.  He  was  the  smallest  of  the  three  boys,  but 
much  the  most  attractive,  with  his  clean-cut  features,  his 
auburn  hair,  and  that  clear,  radiant,  tell-tale  skin  which 
even  now  was  saying  something  that  he  found  diflficult  to 
put  into  so  many  words. 

"  Aren't  haunted  houses  rather  rot  ?  '* 

Such  was  his  first  attempt. 

"Rather  not!"  cried  Chips,  the  Tiger  concurring  on 
appeal. 

"  Still,  it  strikes  me  we're  bound  to  be  seen,  and  it  seems 
rather  a  rotten  sort  of  row  to  get  into." 

Carpenter  was  amused  at  the  ostensible  superiority  of 
this  view.  It  was  hardly  consistent  with  a  further  access 
of  colour  for  which  Chips  was  waiting  before  it  came.  He 
knew  Devereux  of  old  at  their  private  school,  and  that 
what  he  hated  above  all  else  was  getting  into  a  row  of  any 
description.  Jan  might  have  known  it,  too,  by  the  pains 
he  took  to  reduce  the  adverse  chances  to  decimals.  No- 
body was  about,  to  see  them;  nobody  who  did  would  dream 
of  reporting  chaps;  but  for  that  matter,  now  there  were 
three  of  them,  one  could  keep  watch  while  the  other  two  ex- 
plored.   The  house  was  no  better  than  an  empty  ruin,  if  all 


THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE  151 

Jan  had  heard  was  true,  but  they  must  have  a  look  for 
themselves  now  that  they  were  there.  It  was  one  of  the  two 
things  worth  doing  at  that  school,  let  alone  the  games,  and 
you  had  to  go  in  for  them,  whether  you  liked  them  or  not. 

**  What's  the  other  thing  ?  "  asked  Evan,  with  a  bit  of  a 
sneer,  as  became  one  who  had  been  longer  in  the  school 
and  apparently  learnt  less. 

"Molton  Tunnel." 

"Yes,  I  have  heard  of  that.  Some  fellows  are  fool 
enough  to  walk  through  it,  aren't  they?" 

"Some  who  happen  to  have  the  pluck,"  said  Chips, 
taking  the  answer  on  himself.    "There  aren't  too  many." 

"Are  you  one?"  inquired  sarcastic  Evan. 

"No;  but  he  is,"  returned  Chips,  with  a  jerk  of  the 
head  towards  Jan.     "  I  turned  tail  at  the  last." 

"Don't  you  believe  him,"  says  Jan,  grinning.  "I 
wouldn't  take  him  with  me;  he's  too  blind,  is  Chips. 
Wait  till  he  starts  specs;  then  I'll  take  you  both  if  you 
like.  There's  nothing  in  it.  You  can  see  one  end  or  the 
other  half  your  time;  it's  only  a  short  bit  where  you  can't 
see  either,  and  then  you  can  feel  your  way.  But  by  gum 
it  makes  you  mucky!" 

"It'd  make  you  muckier  if  you  met  a  train,"  Evan 
suggested,  with  a  sly  stress  on  Jan's  epithet. 

"  But  I  didn't,  you  see." 

"You  jolly  nearly  did,"  Chips  would  have  it.  "The 
express  came  through  the  minute  after  he  did,  Devereux." 

"  Not  the  minute,  nor  yet  the  five  minutes,"  protested 
Jan.  "  But  here  we  are  at  the  end  of  the  village,  and  if 
that  isn't  the  haunted  house  I'll  eat  my  cap!" 

It  stood  behind  a  row  of  tall  iron  palings,  which  stand 
there  still,  but  the  deadly  little  flat-faced  villa  was  pulled 
down  years  ago,  and  no  other  habitation  occupies  its  site. 
The  garden  was  a  little  wilderness  even  as  the  three  boys 


152  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

first  saw  it  through  the  iron  palings.  But  a  million  twigs 
with  emerald  tips  quivered  with  joy  in  the  breezy  sunshine. 
It  was  no  day  for  ghosts.  The  house,  however,  in  less 
inspiriting  circumstances,  might  well  have  lent  itself  to 
evil  tradition.  Its  windows  were  foul  and  broken,  and 
some  of  them  still  flaunted  the  draggled  remnants  of  old 
futile  announcements  of  a  sale  by  auction.  Its  paint 
was  bleached  all  over,  and  bloated  in  hideous  spots;  mould 
and  discoloration  held  foul  revel  from  roof-tree  to  door- 
step; the  whole  fabric  cried  for  destruction,  as  the  dead 
for  burial. 

"I  doubt  they  won't  have  got  much  of  a  bid,"  said 
Jan,  pointing  out  the  placards.  "Yet  it  must  have  been 
a  tidy  little  place  in  its  day." 

He  had  forced  the  sunken  gate  through  the  weedy 
path,  and  was  first  within  the  disreputable  precincts. 
Evan  was  peering  up  and  down  the  empty  road,  and  Chips 
was  watching  Evan  with  interest. 

"I  shouldn't  come  in,"  said  Chips,  "if  I  were  you, 
Devereux." 

"Why  not?"  demanded  Evan,  with  instantaneous  heat. 

"  Well,  it  is  really  out  of  bounds,  I  suppose,  and  some 
master  might  be  there  before  us,  having  a  look  round, 
and  then  we  should  be  done!" 

Before  an  adequate  retort  could  be  concocted,  Jan  told 
Chips  to  go  to  blazes,  and  Evan  showed  his  indignation 
by  being  second  through  the  garden  gate,  which  Carpenter 
shoved  ajar  behind  them.  Jan  was  already  leading  the 
way  to  the  back  of  the  house.  Instinctively  the  boys  stole 
gently  over  the  weeds,  though  there  was  but  a  dead  wall 
on  the  other  side  of  the  main  road,  and  only  open  fields 
beyond  the  matted  ruin  of  a  back  garden. 

The  back  windows  had  escaped  the  stones  of  the 
village  urchins,  but  the  glass  half  of  a  door  into  the  gar- 


THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE  153 

den  was  badly  smashed.  Jan  put  in  his  hand  to  turn 
the  key,  but  the  door  was  open  all  the  time.  Inside,  the 
boys  spoke  as  softly  as  they  had  trodden  without,  and 
when  Carpenter  gave  an  honest  shudder,  Devereux  fol- 
lowed suit  with  a  wry  giggle.  It  was  all  as  depressing 
as  it  could  be:  mouldy  papers  peeling  off  the  walls,  rot- 
ting boards  that  threatened  to  let  a  leg  clean  through, 
and  a  more  than  musty  atmosphere  that  made  the  hardy 
leader  pull  faces  in  the  hall. 

"I  should  like  to  open  a  window  or  two,"  said  Jan, 
entering  a  room  better  lighted  and  still  better  aired  by 
broken  panes. 

"I  should  start  my  pipe,  if  I  were  you,"  suggested 
Chips,  with  the  perfectly  genuine  motive  implied.  But 
it  was  a  pity  he  did  not  think  twice  before  making  the 
suggestion  then. 

Not  that  it  was  the  first  time  he  had  thought  of  Jan's 
pipe  that  morning.  He  had  been  rather  distressed  when 
Jan  showed  it  to  him  after  the  holidays,  for  Chips  had 
been  brought  up  to  view  juvenile  smoking  with  some 
contempt;  but  he  preferred  to  tolerate  the  smoker  than 
to  alienate  the  friend,  and  earlier  in  the  term  he  had 
looked  on  at  many  a  surreptitious  rite.  Jan  certainly 
smoked  as  though  he  enjoyed  it;  but  Sprawson  had 
shown  expert  acumen  when  he  threatened  his  young 
*un  with  "hot  bodkins  if  I  catch  you  smoking  while 
we're  training  I"  And  Jan  had  played  the  sportsman 
on  the  point.  But  to-day  he  was  to  have  indulged  once 
more,  and  in  the  haunted  house  of  all  places.  Carpen- 
ter had  kept  an  eye  on  the  pocket  bulging  with  Jan's 
pipe  and  pouch,  wondering  if  Evan's  presence  would 
retard  or  prevent  their  appearance,  feeling  altogether 
rather  cynical  in  the  matter.  But  he  had  never  meant 
to  let  the  cat  out  like  this,  and  he  turned  shamefacedly 


154  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

from  Jan*s  angiy  look  to  Evan's  immediate  air  of  supe- 
riority. 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  you  smoke,  Rutter?" 

"  I  always  did,  you  know,"  said  Jan,  with  uncouth  grin 
and  scarlet  ears. 

"I  know."  Evan  glanced  at  Chips.  "But  I  didn't 
think  you'd  have  done  it  here." 

"  I  don't  see  any  more  harm  in  it  here  than  at  home." 

"Except  that  it's  a  rotten  kind  of  row  to  get  into.  I 
smoke  at  home  myself,"  said  Evan,  loftily. 

"All  rows  are  rotten,  aren't  they?"  remarked  Car- 
penter, with  apparent  innocence.  But  Devereux  was 
not  deceived;  these  two  were  like  steel  and  flint  to-day; 
and  more  than  sparks  might  have  flown  between  them 
if  Jan  had  not  created  a  diversion  by  creeping  back  into 
the  hall. 

"I'm  going  upstairs  before  I  do  anything  else,"  he 
announced.    "There's  something  I  don't  much  like." 

"What  is  it?" 

"I  want  to  see." 

Jan's  brows  were  knit;  the  other  two  followed  him 
with  instant  palpitations,  but  close  together,  for  all  their 
bickering.  The  stairs  and  landing  were  in  better  case 
than  the  lower  floor  next  the  earth;  the  stairs  were  sound 
enough  to  creak  alarmingly  as  the  boys  ascended  them 
in  single  file.  And  at  that  all  three  stood  still,  as  though 
they  expected  an  upper  door  to  open  and  a  terrible  chal- 
lenge to  echo  through  the  empty  house.  But  Jan's 
was  the  first  voice  heard,  as  he  picked  up  a  newspaper 
which  had  been  left  hanging  on  the  landing  ban- 
isters. 

"  Some  sporting  card's  been  here  before  us,"  said  Jan. 
"Here's  the  Sportsman  of  last  Saturday  week." 

A  landing  window  with  a  border  of  red  and  blue  glass. 


THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE  155 

in  peculiarly  atrocious  shades,  splashed  the  boys  with 
vivid  colour  as  they  stood  abreast;  but  no  light  came 
from  the  upper  rooms,  all  the  doors  being  shut.  Jan 
opened  one  of  them,  but  soon  left  his  followers  behind  in 
another  room  sweetened  by  a  shattered  pain.  Their  differ- 
ences forgotten  in  the  excitement  of  the  adventure,  these 
two  were  chatting  confidentially  enough  when  a  dreadful 
cry  brought  them  headlong  to  the  door. 

It  was  Jan's  voice  again;  they  could  see  nothing  of 
him,  but  a  large  mouse  came  scuttUng  through  an  open 
door  at  the  end  of  the  landing,  and  almost  over  their 
toes.  Carpenter  skipped  to  one  side,  but  Devereux 
dashed  his  cap  at  the  little  creature  with  a  shout  of  ner- 
vous mirth. 

"Don't  laugh,  you  chaps!"  said  Jan,  lurching  into 
the  doorway  at  the  landing's  end.  They  could  not  see 
his  face;  the  strongest  light  was  in  the  room  behind  him, 
but  they  saw  him  swaying  upon  its  threshold. 

"I  can't  help  it,"  said  Evan,  hysterically.  "Fright- 
ened by  a  mouse — ^you  of  all  people!" 

Jan  turned  back  into  the  room  without  a  word,  but 
they  saw  his  fist  close  upon  the  handle  of  the  door,  and 
he  seemed  to  be  leaning  on  it  for  support  as  the  other 
two  came  up.  "Oh,  I  say,  we  must  smash  a  window 
here!"  Evan  had  cried,  with  the  same  strained  merri- 
ment, when  Chips,  bringing  up  the  rear,  saw  the  other 
spring  from  Jan's  side  back  into  the  passage.  Chips 
pushed  past  him,  and  hugged  Jan's  arm. 

It  was  not  another  empty  room;  there  was  a  tall  fixed 
cupboard  between  fireplace  and  window,  its  door  stand- 
ing as  wide  open  as  the  one  where  the  two  boys  clung 
together;  and  in  the  cupboard  hung  a  suit  of  bursting 
corduroys,  with  a  blackened  face  looking  out  of  it,  and 
hobnail  boots  just  clear  of  the  floor. 


156  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Dead?"  whispered  Chips  through  chattering  teeth. 

"Dead  for  days,"  Jan  muttered  back.  "And  he's 
come  in  here  and  hung  himself  in  the  haunted  house!" 

Crashing  noises  came  from  the  stairs;  it  was  Evan  in 
full  flight,  jumping  many  at  a  time.  Chips  was  after 
him  on  the  instant,  and  Jan  after  Chips  when  he  had 
closed  the  chamber  of  death  behind  him. 

The  horrified  boys  did  not  go  by  the  gate  as  they 
had  come,  but  smashed  the  rotten  fence  at  the  end  of  the 
awful  garden  in  the  frenzy  of  their  flight  across  country. 
It  was  as  though  they  had  done  the  hideous  deed  them- 
selves; over  the  fields  they  fled  pell-mell,  up-hill  and 
down-dale,  through  emerald-dusted  hedge  and  brimming 
ditch,  as  in  a  panic  of  blood-guiltiness.  Spring  still 
smiled  on  them  sunnily,  breezily.  Spring  birds  welcomed 
them  back  with  uninterrupted  song.  The  boys  had  nei- 
ther eyes  nor  ears,  but  only  bursting  hearts  and  break- 
ing limbs,  until  a  well-known  steeple  pricked  the  sky, 
and  they  flung  themselves  down  in  a  hollow  bet^^en  a 
ploughed  field,  rich  as  chocolate,  and  a  meadow  alive 
with  ewes  and  lambs. 

Chips  was  speechless,  because  he  was  not  supposed  to 
run;  but  Evan,  a  notoriously  dapper  little  dandy,  seldom 
to  be  seen  dishevelled  out  of  flannels,  was  the  one  who 
looked  least  like  himself.  He  lay  on  his  stomach  in 
the  fretted  shadow  of  a  stunted  oak.  But  Jan  sat  him- 
self on  the  timber  rails  between  bleating  lambs  and  choc- 
olate furrows,  and  made  the  same  remarks  more  than 
once. 

"  It's  a  bad  job,"  said  Jan  at  intervals. 

"But  are  you  sure  about  it?"  Evan  sat  up  to  ask 
eventually.  "Are  you  positive  it  was  a  man,  and  that 
the  man  was  dead?'* 

"I  can  swear  to  it,"  said  Jan. 


THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE  157 

"So  can  I,"  wheezed  Chips,  who  was  badly  broken- 
winded.  "And  that's  what  we  shall  have  to  do,  worse 
luckl" 

"Why?"  from  Evan. 

"  How  can  we  help  it  ?  " 

"  Nobody  saw  us  go  in  or  come  out." 

"Then  do  you  mean  to  leave  a  dead  man  hanging  till 
his  head  comes  off  ?  " 

Chips  had  a  graphic  gift  which  was  apt  to  lead  him  a 
bit  too  far.  Devereux,  looking  worried,  and  speaking 
snappily,  promptly  told  him  not  to  be  a  beast. 

"I  didn't  mean  to  be,  but  I  should  think  myself  one 
if  I  slunk  out  of  a  thing  Hke  this  without  a  word  to 
anybody. " 

"I  don't  see  what  business  it  is  of  ours.** 

*'  The  man  may  have  a  wife  and  kids.  They  must  be 
half-mad  to  know  what's  become  of  him." 

"  We  can't  help  that.     Besides " 

E-p-n  stopped.  Jan  was  not  putting  in  his  word  at  all, 
but  stolidly  listening  from  his  perch. 

"Besides  what,  Devereux?" 

"Oh,  nothing." 

"Of  course  we  shall  get  into  a  row,"  Chips  admitted, 
cruelly;  "but  I  shouldn't  call  it  a  very  rotten  one,  my- 
self. It  would  be  far  rottener  to  try  to  avoid  one  now, 
and  it  might  get  us  into  a  far  worse  row." 

Evan  snorted  an  incoherent  disclaimer,  to  the  general 
effect  that  the  consequences  were  of  course  the  very  last 
consideration  with  him,  at  all  events  so  far  as  his  own 
skin  went.  He  was  quite  ready  to  stand  the  racket, 
though  he  had  been  against  the  beastly  haunted  house 
from  the  first,  and  it  was  rather  hard  luck  on  hin;.-  But 
what  he  seemed  to  feel  still  more  strongly  was  the  hard 
luck  on  all  their  people,  if  the  three  of  them  had  to  give 


158  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

evidence  at  an  inquest,  and  the  whole  thing  got  into  the 
papers. 

Chips  felt  that  he  would  rather  enjoy  that  part,  but  he 
did  not  say  so,  and  Jan  still  preserved  a  Delphic  silence. 

*'  Besides,"  added  Devereux,  returning  rather  suddenly 
to  his  original  ground,  "I'm  blowed  if  I  myself  could 
swear  I'd  ever  seen  the  body. " 

"You  wouldn't,"  remarked  Jan,  sympathetically. 
"You  didn't  have  a  good  enough  look." 

"Yet  you  saw  enough  to  make  you  bolt,"  said  that 
offensive  Chips,  and  opened  all  the  dampers  of  Evan's 
natural  heat. 

"It  wasn't  what  I  saw,  my  good  fool!"  he  cried 
angrily.  "You  know  as  well  as  I  do  what  it  was  like  up 
there.    That's  the  only  reason  I  cleared  out." 

"Well,  there  you  are!"  said  Jan,  grinning  aloft  on 
his  rail. 

"Then  you  agree  with  Carpenter,  do  you,  that  it's  our 
duty  to  go  in  and  report  the  whole  thing,  and  get  a  lick- 
ing for  our  pains?" 

Carpenter  laughed  satirically  at  the  "licking,"  but 
refrained  from  speech.  He  knew  of  old  that  Evan's  horror 
of  the  rod  was  on  a  par  with  the  ordinary  citizen's  horror 
of  gaol.  And  he  could  not  help  wanting  Jan  to  know  it 
— but  Jan  did. 

Once,  in  the  very  oldest  days,  when  the  pretty  boy 
and  the  stable  brat  were  playing  together  for  almost  the 
first  time,  the  boy  had  broken  a  window  and  begged  the 
brat  to  father  the  crime.  Jan  would  not  have  told  Chips 
for  worlds;  indeed,  he  was  very  sorry  to  have  recalled  so 
dim  an  incident  out  of  the  dead  past;  but  there  it  was, 
unbidden,  and  here  was  the  same  inveterate  abhorrence, 
not  so  much  of  actual  punishment,  but  of  being  put  in  an 
unfavourable  light  in  the  eyes  of  others.    That  was  a 


THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE  159 

distinctive  trait  of  Evan's,  peculiar  only  in  its  intensity. 
Both  his  old  companions  were  equally  reminded  of  it 
now.  But  Jan's  was  the  hard  position!  To  have  got  in 
touch  with  Evan  at  last,  to  admire  him  as  he  always  had 
and  would,  and  yet  to  have  that  admiration  promptly 
tempered  by  this  gratuitous  exhibition  of  a  radical  fault! 
Though  he  put  it  to  himself  in  simpler  fashion,  this  was 
Jan's  chief  trouble,  and  it  would  have  been  bad  enough 
just  then  without  the  necessity  that  he  foresaw  of  choosing 
between  Chips  and  Evan. 

"I  don't  know  about  duty,"  he  temporised,  "but  I 
don't  believe  we  should  be  licked. " 

"Of  course  we  shouldn't!"  cried  Chips.  "But  it 
wouldn't  kill  us  if  we  were. " 

"You  agree  with  him?"  persisted  Evan,  in  a  threaten- 
ing voice  of  which  the  meaning  was  not  lost  on  Jan.  It 
meant  out-of-touch  again  in  no  time,  and  for  good! 

"I  don't  know,"  sighed  Jan.  "I  suppose  we  ought  to 
say  what  we've  seen;  and  it'll  pay  us,  too,  if  it's  going 
to  get  out  anyhow;  but  I  do  tiiink  it's  hard  on  you — 
Devereux.  We  dragged  you  into  it.  You  never  wanted 
to  come  in;  you  said  so  over  and  over."  Jan  gloomed 
and  glowered,  then  brightened  in  a  flash.  "  Look  here !  I 
vote  us  two  tell  Heriot  what  we've  seen.  Chips!  Most 
likely  he  won't  ask  if  we  were  by  ourselves;  he's  sure  to 
think  we  were.  If  he  does  ask,  we  can  say  there  was 
another  chap,  but  we'd  rather  not  mention  his  name, 
because  he  was  dead  against  the  whole  thing,  and  never 
saw  all  we  did!" 

Jan  had  unfolded  his  bright  idea  directly  to  Carpenter, 
whose  opinion  he  awaited  with  evident  anxiety.  He 
resented  being  placed  like  this  between  the  old  friend  and 
the  new,  and  having  to  side  with  one  or  the  other,  es- 
pecially when  he  himself  could  not  see  that  it  mattered 


160  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

so  very  much  which  course  they  took.  They  could  not 
bring  the  dead  man  back  to  life.  On  the  whole  he  sup- 
posed that  Chips  was  right;  but  Jan  would  have  held 
his  tongue  with  Evan  against  any  other  fellow  in  the 
school.  It  was  the  new  friend,  however,  who  had  been 
the  true  friend  these  two  terms,  and  it  was  not  in  Jan's 
body  to  go  against  him  now,  though  he  would  have  given 
a  bit  of  it  to  feel  otherwise. 

"If  that's  good  enough  for  Devereux,"  said  Chips, 
dryly,  "it's  good  enough  for  me.  But  I'm  blowed  if  I 
could  sleep  till  that  poor  chap's  cut  down!" 

Devereux  now  became  far  from  sure  that  it  was  good 
enough  for  him;  in  fact  he  declared  nearly  all  the  way 
back  that  he  would  own  up  with  the  others,  that  they 
must  stand  or  fall  together,  even  if  he  himself  was  more 
sinned  against  than  sinning.  That  was  not  indeed  the 
expression  he  used,  but  the  schoolboy  paraphrase  was 
pretty  close,  and  his  companions  did  not  take  it  up. 
Chips,  having  gained  his  point,  was  content  to  look  vol- 
umes of  unspoken  criticism,  while  Jan  felt  heartily  sick 
of  the  whole  discussion.  He  was  prepared  to  do  or  to 
suffer  what  was  necessary  or  inevitable,  but  for  his  part 
he  had  talked  enough  about  it  in  advance. 

Evan,  however,  would  not  drop  the  subject  until  they 
found  the  familiar  street  looking  cynically  sleepy  and 
serene,  the  same  and  yet  subtly  altered  to  those  young 
eyes  seared  with  a  horror  to  be  fully  realised  only  by  de- 
grees. It  began  to  come  home  to  them  now,  in  the  re- 
gion of  other  black  caps  with  red  badges,  and  faces  that 
met  theirs  curiously,  as  though  they  showed  what  they 
had  seen.  Their  experience  was  indeed  settling  over 
them  like  a  blight,  and  two  of  the  trio  had  forgotten  all 
about  the  consequences  when  the  third  blushed  up  and 
hesitated  at  Heriot's  comer. 


THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE  161 

"Of  course,"  he  stammered,  "if  you  found,  after  all, 
that  you  really  were  able  to  keep  my  name  out  of  it,  I 
should  be  awfully  thankful  to  you  both,  because  I  never 
should  have  put  my  nose  into  the  beastly  place  alone. 
But  if  it's  going  to  get  you  fellows  into  any  hotter  water 
I'll  come  forward  like  a  shot." 

"Noble  fellow!"  murmured  Carpenter  as  the  pair 
turned  into  their  quad. 

"You  shut  up!"  Jan  muttered  back.  "I've  a  jolly 
good  mind  not  to  open  my  own  mouth  either!" 

But  he  did,  and  in  the  event  there  was  no  call  upon 
Evan's  nobility.  Heriot  knew  that  the  two  boys  who 
came  to  him  after  dinner  were  always  about  together,  and 
he  was  too  much  disturbed  by  what  they  told  him  to  ask 
if  they  had  been  alone  as  usual.  He  took  that  for  granted, 
in  the  communications  which  he  lost  no  time  in  making 
both  to  the  police  and  to  the  Head  Master,  who  took  it 
for  granted  in  his  turn  when  the  pair  came  to  his  study  in 
the  School  House.  He  was  very  stern  with  them,  but 
not  unkind.  They  had  broken  bounds,  and  richly  de- 
served the  flogging  he  would  have  given  them  if  their  terri- 
ble experience  were  not  a  punishment  in  itself;  it  was  in- 
deed a  very  severe  one  to  Carpenter,  who  was  by  this  time 
utterly  unstrung;  but  Rutter,  who  certainly  looked  un- 
moved, was  reminded  that  this  was  the  second  time  he 
had  escaped  his  deserts  for  a  serious  offence,  and  he  w^as 
grimly  warned  against  a  third.  If  they  wished  to  signify 
their  appreciation  of  his  clemency,  the  old  man  added, 
they  would  both  hold  their  tongues  about  the  whole 
affair. 

And  the  two  boys  entered  into  a  compact  to  that 
effect  between  themselves,  though  not  without  consider- 
able reluctance  on  the  part  of  poor  Chips,  who  felt  that 
he  was  locking  up  the  conversational  capital  of  a  school 


162  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

lifetime.  Yet  within  a  week  the  adventure  was  being 
talked  about,  and  that  despite  the  fact  that  the  Chief 
Constable  of  the  county,  an  old  friend  of  Heriot's,  had 
prevailed  upon  the  County  Coroner  to  dispense  with  the 
actual  evidence  of  either  boy. 

Jan  asked  Chips  if  he  had  told  anybody,  only  to  meet 
with  an  indignant  denial. 

"I've  never  said  a  word,  my  good  Tiger  I" 

"Well,  I  haven't,  that's  a  sure  thing." 

"Then  it  must  be  Devereux." 

"I  thought  you'd  say  that,"  said  Jan,  but  kept  his 
ears  open  in  form,  and  actually  overheard  Evan  boasting 
of  the  adventure  before  Haigh  came  in.  Moreover,  as  he 
was  not  questioned  about  it  himself,  Jan  was  forced  to 
the  conclusion  that  Evan  was  acting  on  the  principle  of 
one  good  turn  deserving  another,  and  leaving  out  every 
name  but  his  own. 

"  Well  ?  "  asked  Chips  when  next  they  met. 

"W^ell,  I'm  afraid  you're  right;  and  I  don't  know 
what  to  think  of  it,"  said  poor  Jan,  hiding  his  feelings 
as  best  he  could. 

"  I  won't  say  what  I  think,"  returned  Chips. 

And  he  never  did. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

"summer-term" 

*!  O  Summer-Term,  sweet  to  the  Cricketer,  whose  very  existence  is 
bliss; 
O  Summer-Tenn,  sweet  to  the  Editor,  who  needs  write  but  two 
numbers  of  this " 

"But  he  doesn't  write  them,"  objected  Jan,  "any  more 
than  the  captain  of  a  side  makes  all  the  runs." 

"Oh!  I  know  it  should  be  'edit,*  but  that  doesn't 
scan,"  explained  Chips,  and  continued: 

*f  O  Summer-Term,  sweet  to  the  sportsman,  who  makes  a  good  book 
on  the  Oaks " 

"Why  the  Oaks?"  interrupted  Jan  again.  "Why 
not  the  Derby,  while  you  are  about  it?" 

Chips  told  him  he  would  see,  confound  him  I 

"  O  Slunmer-Term,  sweet  to  the  Jester,  who's  plenty  of  food  for  his 
jokes!" 

"I  see;  but  not  enough  rhymes  for  them,  eh?" 

"  That's  about  it,  I  suppose. " 

Chips  was  laughing,  though  Jan  was  just  a  little  too 
sardonic  for  him,  as  had  often  been  the  case  of  late. 
The  scene  was  the  poet's  study,  and  the  time  after  lock-up 
on  a  Sunday  evening,  when  the  friends  always  sat  to- 
gether until  prayers.  The  tardy  shades  of  early  June 
were  intensified  by  the  opaque  window  overlooking  the 
road  and  only  opening  at  the  top.    Chips  had  his  candles 

163 


164  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

burning,  and  the  minute  den  that  he  kept  so  spick  and 
span,  with  its  plush  frames  brushed,  and  its  little  pic- 
tures seldom  out  of  the  horizontal,  looked  quite  fascinat- 
ing in  the  two  dim  lights.  The  poet,  looking  the  part 
in  pince-nez  started  in  the  Easter  holidays,  was  seated 
at  his  table;  the  critic  lounged  in  the  folding  chair  with 
the  leg-rest  up  and  a  bag  of  biscuits  in  his  lap. 

The  evolution  of  the  Poet  Chips  was  no  novelty  to 
Jan,  who  had  been  watching  the  phenomenon  ever  since 
Chips  had  received  a  Handsome  Book  as  second  prize  for 
his  "The  school-bell  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  play," 
in  a  parody  competition  in  Every  Boi/s  Magazine.  That 
secret  triumph  had  occurred  in  their  first  term,  and 
Chips  had  promptly  forwarded  a  companion  effort  ("  In 
her  ear  he  whispers  thickly")  to  the  School  "Mag.," 
in  which  it  was  publicly  declined  with  something  more 

than  thanks.     "  C. ^Your  composition  shows  talent,  but 

tends  to  vulgarity,  especially  towards  the  end.  Choose  a 
more  lofty  subject,  and  try  again!"  C.  did  both  with- 
out delay,  in  a  shipwreck  lay  ("The  sea  was  raging 
with    boisterous    roar")    which    impressed    Jan    deeply, 

but  only  elicited  "C. ^Very  sorry  to  discourage  you, 

hut "  in  the  February  number.    Discouraged  poor  C. 

had  certainly  been,  but  not  more  than  was  now  the  case 
under  the  grim  sallies  of  his  own  familiar  friend. 

It  was  really  too  bad  of  Jan,  whose  Easter  holidays 
had  been  redeemed  by  a  week  of  bliss  at  the  Carpenters' 
nice  house  near  London.  The  two  boys  had  done  ex- 
actly what  they  liked — kept  all  hours — seen  a  play  or 
two,  besides  producing  one  themselves  ("Alone  in  the 
Pirates'  Lair")  in  a  toy  theatre  which  showed  the  child 
in  old  Chips  alongside  the  precocious  poetaster.  But  even 
Jan  had  printed  programmes  and  shifted  scenes  with  a 
zest  unworthy  of  the  heavier  criticism. 


"SUMMER-TERM"  165 

*Go  it,  Chips!"  cried  the  critic  through  half  a  biscuit. 
"It's  first-class;  let's  have  some  more." 

But  Chips  only  went  it  for  another  couplet: — 

"When  'tis  joy  on  one's  rug  to  be  basking,  and  watching  a  match 
on  the  Upper, 
When  the  works  of  J.  Lillywhite,  junior,  rank  higher  than  those 
of  one  Tupper " 

"Who's  he  when  he's  at  home?"  inquired  the  relent- 
less Jan. 

"  Oh,  dash  it  all,  you  want  to  know  too  much!  You're 
as  bad  as  the  old  man;  last  time  our  form  showed  up 
verses  to  him  I'd  got  Olympus,  meaning  sky.  'Who's 
your  friend  Olympus?'  says  Jerry,  with  a  jab  of  his 
joiner's  pencil.  And  now  you  say  the  same  about  poor 
old  Tupper!" 

"I  didn't;  but  who  is  your  friend  Tupper?" 

"He's  no  friend  of  mine,"  explained  candid  Chips, 
"but  I'd  a  good  rhyme  ready  for  him,  so  he  came  in 
handy,  like  my  old  pal  Olympus  at  the  end  of  a 
hexameter.  I  expect  he's  some  old  penny-a-liner. 
'Tupper  and  Tennyson,  Daniel  Defoe,'  as  the  song 
says. " 

Chips  might  or  might  not  have  been  able  to  say  what 
song  he  meant.  His  mind  was  full  of  the  assorted  smatter- 
ings of  an  omniverous  but  desultory  reader,  and  he  never 
had  time  to  tidy  it  like  his  study.  He  sat  pinching  the 
soft  rim  of  one  of  the  candles  into  a  chalice  that  over- 
flowed and  soused  his  fingers  in  hot  grease.  He  was 
not  going  to  read  any  more  aloud,  because  he  knew  what 
rot  it  all  was;  but  there  Jan  warmly  contradicted  him, 
until  he  was  allowed  to  listen  to  the  rest  like  a  better 
friend. 

Yet  just  then  Jan  was  not  at  his  best  as  friend  or 


166  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

companion;    and  it  did  rather  try  his  temper  to  have 
to  listen  to  fulsome  numbers  on  a  sore  subject. 

"An  ode  to  the  balmiest  season  endowed  us  by  Nature's  decree, 
A  wild  panegyric  in  praise  of  the  j oiliest  term  of  the  three!" 

So  Chips  chose  to  characterise  his  doggerel  and  its 
theme;  but  as  he  rarely  made  a  run  at  cricket,  and  was 
always  upset  about  it,  Jan  could  not  think  why.  He  only 
knew  it  was  not  "the  jolliest  term  of  the  three"  for  him, 
but  quite  the  unluckiest  so  far,  despite  the  fact  that  he 
was  free  at  last  from  the  clutches  of  Mr.  Haigh.  It  was 
out  of  school  that  the  bad  luck  of  his  first  term  had  re- 
peated itself  in  aggravated  form;  his  cricket  had  been 
knocked  on  the  head  even  quicker  than  his  football. 

Cricket  in  a  public  school  is  a  heavy  sorrow  to  the 
average  neophyte;  if  he  goes  with  a  reputation,  he  will  get 
his  chance;  unknown  talent  has  to  wait  for  it,  mere 
ardour  is  simply  swamped.  Jan  had  not  only  no  reputa- 
tion, but  no  private  school  where  he  could  say  that  he 
had  played  the  game.  He  did  not  know  he  was  a  crick- 
eter, nor  was  he  at  that  time  any  such  thing;  but  he  was 
a  natural  left-hand  bowler.  He  began  the  term  talking 
about  "notches"  instead  of  runs,  "scouting"  instead  of 
fielding,  and  a  "full"  ball  when  he  meant  a  fast  one. 
Once  he  even  said  "cuddy-handed"  for  "left-handed," 
in  speaking  of  his  own  bowling  to  Chips.  Luckily 
they  were  alone  at  the  time.  Chips  was  shocked  to  find 
his  friend  so  unversed  in  the  very  alphabet  of  cricket, 
and  began  coaching  him  out  of  Lillywhite  without  delay. 
Yet  the  first  three  balls  which  Jan  delivered,  at  their  first 
net,  did  an  informal  hat-trick  at  the  expense  of  the  theo- 
retical exponent  of  the  game. 

Chips,  having  had  his  stumps  disturbed  a  great  many 
times  on  that  occasion,  went  about  talking  more  generously 


"SUMMER-TERM"  167 

than  wisely  of  the  Tiger's  prowess  with  the  ball;  for  he 
was  already  accounted  a  bit  of  a  windbag  about  the 
game,  and  his  personal  ineptitude  soon  found  him  out. 
Chips  had  put  his  name  down  for  the  Lower  Ground, 
and  Jan  his  for  the  adjoining  Middle,  owing  to  his 
decidedly  superior  stature.  But  there  were  plenty  of 
lusty  louts  on  the  Middle,  and  Jan  had  to  go  some  days 
without  a  game;  when  he  got  one  he  was  not  put  on  to 
bowl;  and  May  was  well  advanced  before  he  found 
himself  taking  wickets  in  the  second  Middle  game. 

It  was  Shockley  of  all  people  who  had  tossed  the  ball 
to  him,  with  a  characteristic  reference  to  poor  Chips's 
vicarious  bragging.  "That  young  lubber  Carpenter  says 
you  can  bowl  a  bit;  if  you  can't  I'll  give  the  ruddy  little 
liar  the  biggest  licking  he's  ever  had  in  his  life!"  It 
was  significant  that  Jan  himself  was  not  threatened  with 
violence;  but  perhaps  it  was  the  Shocker's  subtlety  that 
devised  the  surest  means  of  putting  the  new  bowler  on 
his  mettle.  The  fact  remains  that  Jan  shambled  up 
to  the  wicket,  gave  an  ungainly  twiddle  of  the  left  arm, 
and  delivered  a  ball  that  removed  the  leg  bail  after  pitch- 
ing outside  the  off  stump. 

The  defeated  batsman  proceeded  to  make  a  less  cred- 
itable stand  than  the  one  the  Tiger  had  broken  up. 
"I'm  not  going,"  said  he,  without  stirring  from  the 
crease. 

"You  jolly  well  arel"  thundered  Shockley,  who  was 
first  captain  of  the  game.  "The  umpire  didn't  give  it  a 
no-ball,  did  he?" 

"No,  and  he  didn't  give  me  guard,  either.  New 
guard  for  a  left-hand  bowler,  if  you  don't  mind,  Shockley; 
you  should  have  said  he  was  one," 

"I'm  blowed  if  I  knew,"  replied  the  Shocker,  truly 
enough,  and  turned  from  the  other  big  fellow  to  the 


168  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

luckless  bowler.  "Why  the  blue  blazes  didn^t  you  tell 
us,  Rutter?" 

"I  never  thought  of  it,  Shockley." 

Curses  descended  on  Jan's  head;  but  the  batsman 
would  have  to  go.  The  batsman  stuck  to  his  crease. 
The  umpires,  as  usual  the  two  next  men  in,  had  a  sin- 
gular point  to  settle;  one  gave  it  "out"  with  indecent 
promptitude,  and  so  off  with  his  coat;  the  other  umpire, 
a  younger  boy  in  the  batsman's  house,  was  not  so  sure. 

Jan  offered  a  rash  solution  of  the  diflBculty. 

"Suppose  I  bowl  him  out  again?"  he  suggested  with 
the  dryest  brand  of  startling  insolence. 

"I  don't  know  your  beastly  name,"  cried  the  batsman, 
"  but  you'll  know  more  about  me  when  the  game's  over. " 

"Quite  right,"  said  Shockley;  "it'll  do  the  young 
lubber  all  the  good  in  the  world."  And  partly  because 
the  batsman  was  an  even  bigger  fellow  than  himself, 
partly  out  of  open  spite  against  Jan,  the  Shocker  allowed 
the  game  to  proceed. 

The  batsman  took  fresh  guard,  and  Jan  his  shambling 
run.  This  time  the  ball  seemed  well  off  the  wicket,  and 
the  batsman  took  a  vindictive  slash,  only  to  find  his  off 
stump  mown  down. 

"You  put  me  off,  you  devil!"  he  cried,  shaking  his 
bat  at  Jan;  but  this  time  he  did  retire,  to  vow  a  venge- 
ance which  in  the  event  he  was  man  enough  not  to  take. 
For  the  formidable  Tiger  had  secured  the  remaining 
wickets  at  a  nominal  cost. 

In  any  other  game,  on  any  one  of  the  three  grounds, 
such  a  performance  would  have  led  to  the  player's  im- 
mediate promotion  to  the  game  above;  but  Shockley 
managed  to  keep  Jan  down,  and  on  his  own  side,  over  the 
next  half-holiday,  when  another  untoward  event  marked 
the  progress  of  the  second  Middle  game. 


"SUMMER-TERM"  169 

It  was  a  rainy  day,  hardly  fit  for  cricket,  but  sawdust 
was  a  refinement  then  unknown  on  the  Middle,  and  Jan 
would  not  have  understood  its  uses  if  it  had  been  there. 
He  had  never  bowled  with  a  wet  ball  before,  and  he  lost 
his  length  so  completely  that  Shockley  abused  him  like 
a  pickpocket,  and  took  him  off  after  a  couple  of  expensive 
overs.  But  nobody  else  could  do  any  better,  and  Jan  had 
just  resumed  when  a  half-volley  was  returned  between 
himself  and  mid-off.  Jan  shot  out  his  left  hand,  but  tlie 
wet  ball  passed  clean  through  his  fingers,  which  he  shook 
with  pain  while  a  single  was  being  run.  He  was  about  to 
bowl  again  before  he  observed  blood  pouring  over  his 
flannels,  from  his  bowling  hand.  It  was  split  so  badly 
that  he  could  see  between  the  knuckles  of  the  second  and 
third  fingers. 

He  went  dripping  to  the  doctor  who  had  falsely  con- 
victed him  of  a  heart.  That  practitioner  was  out,  and  the 
dripping  ceased  before  he  came  in;  so  he  washed  nothing, 
but  strapped  the  two  fingers  together  in  their  drying 
blood,  and  in  the  next  three  weeks  they  grew  almost  into 
one.  The  greater  part  of  that  time  Jan  carried  his  arm  in 
a  sling,  and  the  days  were  full  of  ironies  not  incorporated 
by  Chips  in  his  gushing  paean.  House  matches  began, 
and  in  the  Under  Sixteen  Heriot's  were  promptly  defeated 
by  a  side  which  must  have  perished  before  a  decent 
bowler;  in  the  All  Ages,  in  spite  of  Charles  Cave  and 
the  runs  he  could  not  help  making  in  house  matches,  they 
only  survived  one  round;  and  Chips  would  have  it  that 
even  there  Jan  would  just  have  made  the  difference.  It 
is  right  to  add  that  the  rest  of  the  house  did  not  realise 
their  loss,  though  Shockley  might  have  made  them  if  he 
had  chosen.  Then  the  Elevens  came  out,  and  Jan  was  not 
even  in  the  Fifth  Middle,  then  the  lowest  on  the  ground; 
Chips  just  scraped  into  the  Fourth  Lower,  the  lowest 


170  FATHEKS  OF  MEN 

Eleven  of  all,  and  one  for  which  (to  his  grief)  no  cap  was 
given. 

Founder's  Day  came  with  the  Old  Boys'  Match,  and  a 
galaxy  of  gay  and  brilliant  young  men,  from  whom  a  very 
good  side  was  chosen  to  do  battle  against  the  school;  and 
Founder's  Day  was  a  whole  holiday,  when  you  were  free  to 
take  your  rug  to  the  Upper  directly  after  chapel.  Jan  took 
his  ball  as  well,  because  his  arm  was  out  of  a  sling,  though 
he  was  still  forbidden  to  play  in  a  game.  That  did  not 
prevent  him  from  bowling  to  one  of  the  long  line  of 
cricketers  who  stuck  single  stumps  down  the  length  of 
the  white  palings  that  bounded  the  ground  on  one  side. 
Volunteer  batteries  bombarded  each,  but  Jan's  batsman 
eventually  requested  the  other  volunteers  to  wait  while 
the  left-hander  gave  him  a  little  practice.  And  after  that 
(but  not  before  the  single  stump  had  been  laid  low  once) 
the  Old  Boy  asked  Jan  his  name,  and  why  he  was  not 
bowling  for  the  school;  it  is  true  that  he  was  laughing  as 
he  spoke,  and  a  knot  of  listeners  laughed  louder,  which 
sent  Jan  off  to  his  rug  in  some  little  dudgeon. 

There  Chips  soon  joined  him  with  a  startling  state- 
ment to  the  effect  that  Jan's  fortune  was  as  good  as 
made.  "  I  suppose  you  know  who  it  was  you  were  bowl- 
ing to?"  he  inquired  in  self-defence  against  the  Tiger's 
claws. 

"No,  I  don't,  and  I  don't  care  either." 

"It'sonlyA.G.  Swallow!" 

"I  never  heard  of  him." 

"He  was  captain  here  before  we  were  born,  and  only 
about  the  best  all-round  man  we  ever  turned  out!  He's 
played  for  the  Gentlemen  again  and  again. " 

"What's  that  to  me?" 

"It  may  be  everything!  He  went  straight  up  to 
Dudley  Relton  and  told  him  all  about  you.     I'll  swear  he 


"SUMMER-TERM"  171 

did.  I  saw  him  imitate  your  action — no  mistaking  it — 
and  I  saw  Relton  look  this  way. " 

Jan  did  not  affect  any  further  indifference;  but  he 
refused  to  accept  a  sanguine  interpretation  of  the  alleged 
interview.  Dudley  Relton  was  a  new  master  that  term, 
but  as  an  Oxford  cricketer  his  fame  was  scarcely  past  its 
height.  He  had  led  that  University  at  Lord's  the  very 
year  before;  and  here  he  was  in  the  van  of  a  new  move- 
ment, as  perhaps  the  earliest  pioneer  of  the  so-called 
"cricket  master"  to  whom  the  school  professional  now 
plays  second  fiddle.  The  innovation  was  characteristic  of 
Mr.  Thrale,  and  not  out  of  harmony  with  a  general  feeling 
that  no  mere  player  could  replace  the  giant  who  had  com- 
pleted his  mortal  innings  since  Chips  and  Jan  obtained 
tlieir  first  school  caps  of  him.  It  remained  to  be  seen, 
however,  whether  Dudley  Relton  was  the  right  man  in  an 
anomalous  place.  It  was  said  that  he  was  disposed  to 
interfere  with  the  composition  of  the  Eleven,  that  a  strong 
captain  would  have  put  him  in  his  place,  that  the  great 
Charles  Cave  had  done  so  on  his  own  account,  and  that 
Dudley  Relton  had  still  to  justify  his  existence  as  a  pro- 
fessed discoverer  of  buried  talent.  Of  such  material 
Chips  constructed  a  certain  castle  in  the  air,  and  put  in 
Jan  as  tenant  for  the  term  of  his  school  life;  and  was  so 
full  of  his  unselfish  dream  that  the  July  Mag.,  actually 
containing  the  "wild  panegyric  in  praise  of  the  jolliest 
term  of  the  three, "  came  out,  as  it  were,  behind  the  poet's 
back;  and  he  had  the  rare  experience  of  hearing  himself 
quoted  before  he  saw  himself  in  print. 

It  was  after  second  school,  and  Chips  had  gone  into 
hall  to  see  the  cricket  in  the  papers.  He  found  a  group 
of  fellows  skimming  the  new  Magazine,  just  out  that 
minute,  and  chuckling  indulgently  over  some  item  or  other 
in  its  contents. 


172  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"That's  not  bad  about  'basking  on  the  rugs  on  the 
Upper, ' "  remarked  Crabtree,  critically;  and  Chips  felt  his 
heart  between  his  teeth. 

"The  whole  thing  isn't  bad,"  aflBrmed  no  other  than 
Charles  Cave,  and  that  made  Chips  feel  as  though  a  royal 
palm  had  rested  on  his  head;  but  there  was  just  an 
element  of  doubt  about  the  matter,  owing  to  Crabtree's 
slight  misquotation,  which  was  more  than  literary  flesh 
and  blood  could  stand. 

"You  might  let  me  seel"  gasped  Chips,  at  Crabtree's 
elbow. 

"Why  should  I?"  demanded  that  worthy,  with  all 
the  outraged  dignity  of  his  very  decided  seniority. 

Chips  knew  too  well  that  he  had  taken  a  liberty  which 
the  actual  circumstances  alone  could  excuse;  but  nobody 
else  was  listening  yet,  so  he  whispered  in  Crabtree's  ear, 
"Because  I  wrote  it!" 

"You  what?"  cried  Crabtree,  irritably. 

"I  wrote  that  thing." 

"What  thing?" 

Everybody  was  listening  now. 

"That  thing  you're  reading  about  'Summer-Term,'" 
said  Chips  shamefacedly. 

"What  a  He!"  cried  half  the  fellows  in  the  hall. 

"It  isn't.    I  swear  I  did." 

Charles  Cave  was  too  great  a  man  either  to  pass  any 
comment  on  the  situation,  or  to  withdraw  the  one  he  had 
already  made  on  the  verses  themselves.  But  Crabtree  was 
nodding  his  great  red  head  with  intimidating  violence. 

"Oh!  so  you  wrote  the  thing,  did  you?" 

"I  did,  I  swear!" 

"Then  it's  the  greatest  rot  I  ever  read  in  my  life," 
said  Crabtree,  "  and  the  most  infernal  piece  of  cheek  for  a 
kid  of  your  standing!" 


"SUMMER-TERM"  173 

Chips  never  forgave  himself  for  not  having  held  his 
tongue ;  but  there  was  something  bracing  both  about  this 
rough  sally  and  the  laugh  it  raised.  The  laughter  at  any 
rate  was  not  ill-natured,  and  Chips  received  a  good  many 
compliments  mingled  with  the  chaff  to  which  his  precocious 
flight  exposed  him.  He  was  always  sorry  that  he  had  not 
held  his  tongue  and  enjoyed  the  sweets  of  anonymity  a 
little  longer.  But  nothing  could  rob  him  of  that  great 
moment  in  which  Cave  major  praised  "the  whole  thing" 
in  the  highest  schoolboy  terms,  which  were  not  afterwards 
retracted. 


CHAPTER  XV 

sprawson's  masterpiece 

Sprawson  was  among  those  who  congratulated  the 
author  of  the  "wild  panegyric,"  though  his  praise  was 
tempered  with  corporal  punishment  for  the  use  of  the 
word  "eulogic"  in  the  same  opening  stanza.  Sprawson 
declared  it  was  not  a  word  at  all,  but  the  base  coinage  of 
the  poetaster's  brain,  and  when  Chips  showed  him  the 
epithet  in  a  dictionary  he  got  another  cuff  for  defending 
the  indefensible.  A  man  of  unsuspected  parts  was 
Sprawson;  but  there  was  no  venom  in  his  hearty  violence. 
It  was  Sprawson  who  told  Jan  he  had  heard  he  was  a 
bit  of  a  bowler,  and  promised  him  a  game  on  the  Upper 
before  the  term  was  out  and  a  licking  if  he  got  less  than 
five  wickets.  Sprawson  himself  was  no  cricketer,  but  as 
Athletic  Champion  he  had  been  made  captain  of  the 
second  game  on  the  Upper  Ground. 

He  was  a  youth  who  took  few  things  as  seriously  as 
his  own  events  in  the  sports.  He  loved  to  pose  as  a 
prematurely  hard  liver,  and  perhaps  he  was  one;  the 
famous  flask  had  been  known  to  smell  of  spirits.  He 
came  into  sharp  contact  at  times  with  Heriot,  who, 
however,  had  early  diagnosed  him  as  a  rather  theatrical 
villain,  and  treated  him  accordingly  as  a  clown.  Even 
Sprawson,  even  in  the  summer  term,  with  Satan  con- 
tinually on  his  idle  hands,  got  no  change  out  of  Mr 

174 


SPRAWSON'S  MASTERPIECE  175 

Heriot;  but  with  a  man  like  the  unfortunate  Spook  he 
was  a  terrible  handful.  The  Spook  took  the  Upper 
Fifth,  in  which  Sprawson  had  lain  comfortably  fallow  for 
several  terms:  relays  of  moderate  workers,  who  had  found 
and  left  him  there,  compared  notes  upon  his  insolent 
audacity  in  what  was  known  indeed  as  "Sprawson's 
form."  How  he  would  daily  affix  the  page  of  Horace  or 
of  Sophocles  by  drawing-pin  to  the  boys'  side  of  the 
Spook's  tall  desk,  and  read  off  his  "rep"  under  the 
master's  nose;  how  methodically  he  devoured  the  Sports- 
man behind  a  zariba  of  dictionaries,  every  morning  of 
his  life  in  second  school,  and  how  the  cover  of  his  Bible 
was  profaned  as  the  cloak  of  fiction  not  to  be  found 
in  the  school  library;  these  were  but  a  few  of  the  practices 
and  exploits  of  Sprawson  that  were  common  talk  not 
only  in  the  school  but  among  the  younger  masters.  And 
yet  when  the  Heriots  lost  an  aged  father  in  July,  and 
hurried  across  England  to  the  funeral,  who  but  the  gal- 
lant Spook  should  volunteer  to  look  after  the  house  in 
their  absence! 

The  staff  were  divided  as  to  whether  it  was  an  act 
of  heroic  hardihood  or  of  supreme  insensibility  on  the 
volunteer's  part;  they  were  perhaps  most  surprised  at 
Heriot,  who  knew  the  Spook  as  well  as  they  did,  but  had 
been  in  no  mood  to  resist  his  dashing  importunity.  It 
was  not  the  house  that  they  distrusted  as  a  whole.  Heriot 
was  a  great  house-master,  though  on  principle  disin- 
clined to  pick  and  choose  as  sedulously  as  some  of  them; 
he  conceived  it  his  whole  duty  to  make  the  best  of  the 
material  that  came  his  way  unsought;  but  he  had  not 
made  much  of  Sprawson,  and  it  was  with  Sprawson  that 
the  solicitous  staff  were  reckoning  on  their  colleague's 
account. 

It  did  not  say  much  for  their  knowledge  of  boys,  as 


176  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

the  Spook  himself  told  them  in  common-room  next  day. 
Apparently  the  house  was  behaving  like  a  nonconformist 
chapel.  Cave  major  was  indeed  stated  to  have  tried  his 
haughty  and  condescending  airs  on  the  great  proconsul, 
but  without  success  according  to  proconsular  report. 

"I  introduced  a  pestiferous  insect  into  the  young 
fellow's  auricle,"  boasted  the  Spook;  "our  good  Heriot 
will  find  his  stature  reduced  by  a  peg  or  two,  if  I  mistake 
not.  As  for  the  rest  of  the  house,  I  can  only  say  I  have 
been  treated  as  a  gentleman  by  gentlemen — quorum  pars 
maxima  my  friend  Sprawson.  His  is  a  much  misjudged 
character.  I  begin  to  fear  that  I  myself  have  done  him 
less  than  justice  in  form.  I  have  been  harsh  with  him — 
too  harsh — poor  Sprawson  I  And  now  he  heaps  coals 
of  fire  on  my  head;  it  has  touched  me  deeply — deeply 
touched  me — I  assure  you.  He  has  quite  constituted  him- 
self my  champion  in  the  house;  amusing,  isn't  it?  As  if 
I  needed  one.  But  I  haven't  the  heart  to  say  him  nay. 
A  new  boy,  with  a  misguided  sense  of  postprandial  humour, 
brings  me  an  order  to  sign  for  a  ton  of  candles;  only  a 
ton,  to  go  on  with,  I  suppose.  I  just  say,  'Make  it  out 
for  a  truck!'  But  what  does  Sprawson?  I  send  the 
young  gentleman  about  his  business;  back  he  comes, 
sobbing  his  little  heart  out  in  apologies  for  which  I  never 
stipulated.  I  had  reckoned  without  my  Sprawson! 
Sprawson,  I  fear,  had  spared  neither  rod  nor  child;  the 
little  man  was  in  a  pitiable  state  until  I  promised  to  tell 
Sprawson  I  had  forgiven  him.  Sprawson,  a  thorn  in  my 
form,  who  must  be  sat  upon,  but  the  white  rose  of 
chivalry  in  his  house!'* 

That  was  not  the  only  instance.  There  had  been 
some  tittering  at  prayers.  Sprawson  had  picked  up  the 
oflFenders  like  kittens,  and  gently  hurled  them  into  outer 
darkness;  and  now  the  house  could  not  have  been  better 


SPRAWSON'S  MASTERPIECE  177 

behaved  if  it  had  accompanied  poor  Heriot  on  his  sad 
errand.  It  was  all  quite  true.  Sprawson  was  ruling  the 
house  with  a  rod  of  iron.  The  order  for  the  ton  of  candles 
was  the  instigation  of  some  minor  humorist,  who  caught 
it  hotter  than  the  tearful  apologist.  The  giggling  at 
prayers  was  a  real  annoyance  to  Sprawson.  He  meant 
the  house  to  behave  itself  in  Heriot's  absence;  he  was 
going  to  keep  order,  whatever  Loder  did.  This  to  Loder's 
face,  after  prayers,  with  half  the  house  listening,  and 
Charles  Cave,  standing  by  with  his  air  of  supercilious 
detachment,  but  without  raising  voice  or  finger  in  defence 
of  his  brother  praepostor. 

The  house  went  to  bed  like  mice.  Joyce  in  his  parti- 
tion used  blood-curdling  language  about  Sprawson,  and 
Crabtree's  criticism  was  not  the  less  damaging  for  being 
fit  for  publication  in  the  Times.  They  were  alike,  how- 
ever, in  employing  a  subdued  tone,  while  Bingley  and 
Jan  exchanged  lasting  impressions  in  a  whisper.  Chips 
w^as  still  in  another  dormitory,  where  he  was  not  encour- 
aged to  air  his  highly-coloured  views;  but  the  conversion 
of  Sprawson  in  the  hour  of  need  was  to  him  more  like  a 
page  out  of  Bret  Harte  than  any  incident  within  his  brief 
experience. 

The  house  had  seldom  been  sooner  asleep.  In  the 
little  dormitory  Crabtree  was  the  first  to  return  no  an- 
swer to  Joyce,  who  told  the  other  two  to  shut  up  as  well, 
and  was  himself  soon  indulging  in  virtuous  snores.  There 
was  no  more  talking  in  the  neighbouring  dormitory 
either,  and  none  in  the  one  downstairs  so  far  as  Jan  could 
hear  before  he  also  sank  into  the  heavy  sleep  of  active 
youth. 

It  took  a  tremendous  shaking  to  wake  him  up.  It 
was  not  morning;  it  was  the  middle  of  the  night.  Yet 
there    were    mutterings    and    splutterings    in    the    other 


178  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

partitions,  and  an  unceremonious  hand  had  Jan  by  the 
shoulder. 

"Get  up,  will  you?  It's  a  case  of  burglars!  All  the 
chaps  are  getting  up  to  go  for  them;  but  you  can  hide 
between  the  sheets  if  you  like  it  better. " 

And  Crabtree  retreated  to  his  comer  as  Jan  swung  his 
feet  to  the  ground.  He  was  still  quite  dazed;  he  asked 
whether  anybody  had  told  Heriot. 

"Heriot's  away,  you  fool!"  Joyce  reminded  him  in 
a  stage  whisper. 

"That's  why  they've  come,"  explained  Bingley,  in 
suppressed  excitement.  "They've  seen  his  governor's 
death  in  the  papers.     I'll  bet  you  it's  a  London  gang. " 

Bingley  was  more  than  ever  the  precocious  expert 
in  matters  criminal.  He  had  seen  a  man  condemned  in 
the  Easter  holidays.  But  this  was  the  night  of  Bingley's 
life. 

Sounds  of  breakage  came  from  Joyce's  'tish.  "I'm 
not  going  down  unarmed,"  said  he.  "Who  wants  a  rung 
of  my  towel  rail?"  Crabtree  and  Bingley  were  supplied 
in  the  darkness.  "None  left  for  you,  Rutter;  take  a  boot 
to  heave  at  their  heads. " 

"I'll  take  my  jug,"  said  Jan,  emptying  it  into  his 
basin;  "  it'll  do  more  damage. " 

"Come  on,  you  chaps!"  urged  Crabtree.  "He'll  have 
got  the  Spook  by  this  time. " 

Instinctively  Jan  guessed  that  the  pronoun  stood  for 
old  Mother  Sprawson,  and  he  was  right.  It  was  that  bom 
leader  of  boys  and  men  who  had  alarmed  the  dormitories 
before  going  through  into  the  private  part  to  summon 
the  Spook  from  his  slumbers;  but  where  the  thieves  were 
now,  what  damage  they  had  done,  or  who  had  discovered 
their  presence  in  the  house,  Jan  had  no  idea  as  he  accom- 
panied the  others  down  the  leaden  stairs.     Here  there  was 


'      SPRAWSON'S  MASTERPIECE  179 

more  light,  or  at  any  rate  less  darkness,  for  a  fine  moon 
streamed  through  skylight  and  staircase  window,  and 
spectre  forms  were  drifting  downward  through  its  pallid 
rays.  It  was  still  the  day  of  the  obsolete  nightshirt,  and 
that  ghostly  garment  was  at  its  best  or  worst  upon  a 
moonlight  night.  Some  boys  had  tucked  theirs  into  their 
trousers;  a  few  had  totally  eclipsed  themselves  in  jackets 
or  dressing-gowns  as  well;  but  the  majority  came  as  they 
had  risen  from  their  beds,  white  and  whispering,  tittering 
a  little,  but  not  too  convincingly  at  first,  and  for  the 
most  part  as  ignorant  of  what  had  happened  as  Jan 
himself. 

At  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  on  the  moonlit  threshold 
of  the  open  door  into  the  quad,  two  portentous  figures 
dammed  the  descending  stream  of  unpresentable  attire: 
one  was  the  Spook,  his  master's  gown  (and  little  else  that 
could  be  seen)  covering  his  meagre  anatomy,  but  in  his 
hand  a  Kaffir  battle-axe  which  usually  hung  over  Heriot's 
stairs.  His  companion  was  the  redoubtable  Sprawson,  a 
pioneer  in  striped  pyjamahs,  armed  for  his  part  with  a  carv- 
ing-knife of  prodigious  length  which  was  daily  used  in  hall. 

" My  good  boys! "  expostulated  the  Spook.  "  My  good 
boys!  I  wish  you'd  go  back  to  your  beds  and  leave  the 
intruder  to  me!" 

"We  couldn't  do  that,  sir,"  said  one  or  two.  "We'll 
stand  by  you,  sir,  never  fear!" 

"My  brave  lads!  I  wish  you  wouldn't,  I  do  really. 
He'll  have  short  shrift  from  me,  I  promise  you.  Short 
shrift " 

"Silence!"  hissed  Sprawson,  as  a  titter  spread  on  the 
stairs.  "I'll  murder  the  fellow  who  laughs  again!"  and 
his  carving-knife  filled  with  moonlight  from  haft  to  point. 
"  It's  no  laughing  matter.  They've  been  at  Mr.  Heriot's 
silver;   the  dining-room's  ransacked.     I  heard  them  come 


180  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

through  this  way;   that  made  me  look  out.     One  at  least 
is  hiding  in  the  studies." 

"I'll  hide  him!"  said  the  Spook,  readily. 

"  Silence  1 "  commanded  Sprawson,  with  another  flourish 
of  his  dreadful  blade.  "If  you  will  make  jokes,  sir,  we 
shall  never  have  a  chance;  are  we  to  take  the  whole  house 
with  us,  or  are  we  not?" 

"I  don't  like  leaving  them  behind,  Sprawson,  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  any  miscreants  whose  ambush  we  may 
have  overlooked.  Are  the  whole  house  there?"  inquired 
the  Spook. 

-    "Yes,  sir!    Yes,  sir!"  from  a  dozen   tongues,   and 
another  terrifying  "Silence!"  from  Sprawson. 

"Shall  I  call  over,  sir?"  suggested  Loder,  emerging 
from  obscurity  to  raise  a  laugh  from  the  rank  and  file. 
Sprawson  was  too  quick  for  him  with  crushing  snub;  he 
was  surprised  at  the  captain  of  the  house:  what  next? 
So  the  laugh  that  came  was  at  Loder's  expense,  but  it 
again  was  promptly  quelled  by  the  inimitable  Sprawson. 

"If  we  waste  any  more  time  here,  sir,  they'll  have 
the  bars  off  the  back  study-windows  and  get  clean  away. 
I  believe  all  the  house  are  here.  I  should  let  them  come, 
sir,  if  I  were  you;  there's  safety  in  numbers,  after  all." 

"  Then  I  lead  the  way, "  said  the  Spook,  diving  under 
the  raised  carving-knife.  "No,  Sprawson,  not  even  to 
you,  my  gallant  fellow;  second  to  none,  if  you'll  permit 
me,  Sprawson,  on  this  occasion.  Follow  me,  my  lads, 
follow  me!" 

And  follow  him  they  did  on  bare  tip-toe,  over  the  cold 
flags  of  the  alley  alongside  the  hall,  and  so  out  into  the 
untrammelled  moonlight  of  the  quad.  Sure  enough,  the 
nearer  door  to  the  studies  was  seen  to  be  ajar.  But  as 
the  Spook  approached  it  boldly,  Sprawson  plucked  him 
by  the  gown. 


SPRAWSON'S  MASTERPIECE  181 

"The  fives-courts,  sirl  I  thought  I  saw  something 
moving  behind  the  back- wall!" 

All  eyes  flew  to  the  fives-courts  at  the  opposite  end  of 
the  quad;  the  back-wall,  their  unorthodox  peculiarity  as 
Eton  courts,  would  have  sheltered  a  band  of  robbers  until 
the  last  moment,  when  their  pursuers  peeping  over  might 
be  shot  down  comfortably  at  arm's  length.  No  better 
bulwark  against  carving-knives  and  battle-axes,  no  finer 
mask  for  a  whole  battery  of  small-arms;  and  yet  the 
valiant  Spook  was  for  advancing  single-footed,  under  that 
treacherous  moon,  upon  this  impregnable  position.  Spraw- 
son  would  not  hear  of  it;  together,  said  Sprawson,  or  not 
at  all,  even  if  he  got  expelled  for  lifting  his  hand  against 
a  master.  The  master  shook  it  melodramatically  instead, 
and  with  a  somewhat  painful  gait  the  pair  started  off 
across  the  stretch  of  moonlit  gravel.  Jan  was  the  next 
to  follow,  with  his  jug;  but  all  the  small  dormitory,  being 
more  or  less  armed,  were  to  the  fore  in  an  advance  which 
became  all  but  universal  before  the  leaders  reached  the 
rampart.  Cave  major  alone  had  the  wit  to  stay  behind, 
a  majestic  rearguard  with  his  hands  in  his  dressing-gown 
pockets,  and  something  suspiciously  like  a  cigarette 
between  his  lips. 

The  courts  were  discovered  empty  at  a  glance;  yet 
Sprawson  seized  Jan's  jug,  and  dashed  it  to  fragments 
against  the  buttress  in  the  outer  court  while  the  Spook 
was  busy  peering  into  the  inner. 

"  I  thought  I  saw  something  move  behind  the  pepper- 
box," explained  Sprawson.  "Very  sorry,  sir!  I'll  buy 
a  new  one.    I'm  ashamed  of  showing  such  bad  nerve. " 

"Bad  nerve!  You're  a  hero,  Sprawson.  I'll  pay  for 
it  myself,"  the  Spook  was  saying,  kindly  enough,  when  a 
piercing  "Yoicks!"  rang  out  from  the  deserted  end  of 
the  quad. 


182  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Charles  Cave  was  holding  his  cigarette  behind  his 
back,  and  waving  airily  to  the  study  windows  with  the 
other  hand. 

"  It's  all  right,  sir;  you  needn't  hurry;  only  I  thought 
you  might  like  to  know  there  was  a  light  up  there  this 
minute!" 

The  stampede  back  across  the  gravel  was  in  signal 
contrast  to  the  stealthy  and  circumspect  advance;  and 
many  a  late  laggard  found  himself  swept  off  his  feet  in 
the  van;  but  Sprawson  outstripped  all  with  a  rush  that 
spilt  the  small  fry  right  and  left,  and  he  was  first  up  the 
study  stairs.  But  the  Spook  panted  after  him,  and  once 
more  insisted  on  taking  the  actual  lead. 

The  procession  which  he  headed  down  the  long  study 
passage  was  no  longer  the  somewhat  faltering  force  which 
had  deployed  in  the  moonlit  quad;  it  was  as  though  con- 
fidence had  come  with  protracted  immunity,  and  high 
spirits  had  come  of  confidence;  in  any  case,  Sprawson 
had  to  lay  about  him  more  than  once  to  stop  a  giggle  or 
a  merry  scuffle  in  the  dark.  He  appealed  to  Loder  to 
keep  better  order  (Cave  major  was  finishing  his  cigarette 
quietly  in  the  quad),  and  Loder  promptly  smacked  the 
unoffending  head  of  Chips.  Merriment,  moreover,  was 
unpreventable  under  the  Spook's  leadership  in  the  study 
passage;  for  into  each  of  the  little  dark  dens  would  he 
peer  after  pounding  on  the  door  with  the  blunt  end  of  the 
Kaffir  battle-axe,  and  his  cry  was  always,  "Come  out, 
fellow!"  or  "You'd  better  come  out,  my  man!"  or  "It's 
fourteen  years  for  this,  you  know;  only  fourteen  years* 
hard  labour!"  and  once — "You  think  I  can  see  you,  but 
I  can't!" — a  signal  instance  of  absence  of  mind  in  the 
presence  of  danger. 

There  were  other  diversions  to  which  the  Spook  did 
not  contribute,  as  when  Sprawson  screamed  "Got  him!" 


SPRAWSON'S  MASTERPIECE  183 

from  the  depths  of  some  study,  and  emerged  dragging 
young  Petrie  after  him  by  the  hair  of  his  innocent  head; 
but  the  dramatic  effect  of  this  interlude  was  immediately 
discounted  by  a  clumsy  imitation  on  the  part  of  Shockley, 
of  whom  wonderfully  little  had  been  seen  or  heard  during 
the  earlier  proceedings.  Sprawson  made  short  work  of 
him  now. 

"You  fool,  do  you  want  to  spoil  the  whole  thing?'* 
whispered  Sprawson,  fiercely,  in  Jan's  hearing;  and  those 
few  words  spoilt  the  whole  thing  for  Jan.  He  retired 
into  his  own  study,  and  sat  down  in  the  dark,  wiping 
his  forehead  on  his  sleeve,  and  chuckling  and  shaking  his 
head  by  turns,  as  amusement  mingled  in  his  mind  with  a 
certain  vexatious  disappointment. 

Meanwhile  a  climax  was  deducible  in  or  about  the 
big  studies  up  the  two  or  three  steps  at  the  inner  end  of 
the  passage.  General  clamour  drowned  the  individual 
voice;  but  the  devil's  own  tattoo  with  the  battle-axe 
proclaimed  a  door  fastened  on  the  inside  according  to 
the  best  burgling  traditions  as  expounded  by  Bingley  in 
dormitory.  Jan  was  not  going  to  see  the  fun;  he  was 
not  out  of  bed  for  fun;  but  he  could  not  resist  a  grin 
when  the  belaboured  door  gave  way  audibly,  and  the  crash 
was  succeeded  by  a  louder  outcry  than  ever  from  the 
bloodthirsty  pack.  It  was  a  chorus  of  disgust  and  dis- 
comfiture, shouted  down  eventually  by  Sprawson,  and 
at  length  followed  by  some  muffled  remarks  from  the 
Spook  and  subdued  cheers  from  his  audience.  Then 
master  and  boys  trooped  back  along  the  passage,  and  all 
but  Chips  Carpenter  passed  Jan's  open  door  without 
looking  in. 

"Tiger!  is  that  you?" 

"  It's  me,  Chips.    I'd  had  enough. " 

"But  you  missed  the  best  of  all!    The  thief  or  thieves 


184  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

had  got  out  through  Sprawson's  study — locked  the  door — 
fixed  a  rope  to  his  table  leg,  and  heaved  it  back  through 
the  open  window  after  they'd  got  down  into  the 
streetl" 

"Does  anybody  know  what  they  took  away  with 
them?" 

"Nothing,  it's  hoped,  because  Sprawson  disturbed 
them  at  their  work. " 

"  Oh,  he  did,  did  he  ?  And  it  was  Sprawson's  study 
they  got  out  by?" 

"Yes.  That  was  a  bit  of  a  coincidence,  wasn't 
it?" 

"Just  a  biti    But  I  think  all  the  more  of  Sprawson." 

"So  does  all  the  house,"  said  Chips,  eagerly.  "The 
old  Spook's  let  the  lot  of  us  off  first  school  to-morrow,  or 
rather  to-day,  and  he  and  Sprawson  are  looking  for  the 
key  of  the  beer-barrel  to  serve  out  some  all  round!  So  I 
advise  you  to  look  sharp. " 

But  Jan  elected  to  enlighten  his  friend  about  some- 
thing on  the  way;  and  the  now  lighted  hall  presented  an 
animated  scene  when  at  length  they  passed  the  windows. 
Flushed  faces  emerging  from  the  various  degrees  of  disha- 
bille were  congregated  by  force  of  habit  about  the  fireplace. 
Sprawson  and  Cave  major  ("  bracketed  supreme,"  as  Chips 
afterwards  remarked)  were  the  salient  and  central  pair; 
Loder  and  others,  such  as  Shockley,  were  plying  them 
with  questions,  only  to  receive  subtle  smiles  and  pregnant 
shakes  of  the  head;  on  the  outer  skirts  were  the  nobodies, 
and  the  less  than  nobodies,  whispering  together  in  excited 
knots,  or  pressing  forward  for  a  crumb  of  first-hand 
information. 

"And  I  never  saw  it!"  muttered  Chips  outside  the 
door.  "But  old  Bob  Heriot  will,  the  very  moment  he 
hears.    And  what  on  earth  do  you  think  he'll  do?" 


SPRAWSON'S  MASTERPIECE  185 

"Score  off  the  whole  house,"  Jan  suggested,  "to  make 
sure  of  one  or  two!" 

"And  make  a  laughing-stock  of  the  wretched  Spook 
into  the  bargain?  No  fear!  Bob's  not  another  Haigh. 
He'll  do  something  cleverer  than  that,  or  he  won't  do 
anything  at  all. " 


CHAPTER  XVI 

SnilLIA   SIMILIBUS 

Chips  was  right  and  Jan  was  wrong,  but  there  was  just 
one  moment  when  it  looked  the  other  way  about. 

Heriot  did  nothing  at  all — until  the  next  Saint's  Day. 
That,  however,  was  almost  immediately  after  his  return, 
while  he  still  looked  sadder  than  when  he  went  away,  and 
years  older  than  his  age.  The  chief  event  of  the  day  was 
the  annual  match  between  the  Sixth  Form  and  the  School. 
Heriot  had  not  been  near  the  ground,  though  he  had  no 
dearer  haunt,  and  yet  by  dinner-time  he  seemed  suddenly 
himself  again.  Stratten  and  Jellicoe,  whose  places  in  hall 
that  term  were  on  either  side  of  him  at  the  long  table, 
afterwards  declared  that  they  had  never  known  the  old 
boy  in  better  form.  Stratten  and  Jellicoe  were  cricketers 
of  high  promise,  and  Heriot  chatted  with  them  as  usual 
about  their  cricket  and  the  game  in  general.  When 
Miss  Heriot  had  left  the  hall,  however,  her  brother  did 
not  resume  his  seat  preparatory  to  signing  orders  for 
his  house,  as  his  practice  was,  but  remained  standing  at 
the  head  of  the  long  table,  and  ordered  the  door  to  be 
shut.  There  was  a  certain  dry  twinkle  behind  his  glasses; 
but  his  beard  and  moustache  were  one,  and  the  beard 
jutted  out  abnormally. 

"If  I've  been  slow  to  allude  to  your  strange  adventures 
of  two  or  three  nights  ago,"  said  Heriot,  "I  need  hardly 

186 


SIMILIA  SIMILIBUS  187 

tell  you  it  has  only  been  because  my  mind  has  been  full 
of  other  things.  I'm  very  sorry  not  to  have  been  with 
you  in  what  certainly  appears  to  have  been  the  most 
exciting  hour  the  house  has  known  since  I  took  it  over. 
I  have  evidently  missed  a  great  deal;  but  I  congratulate 
you  all  on  the  conspicuous  gallantry  said  to  have  been 
displayed  by  every  one  of  you,  at  a  moment's  notice,  in 
the  middle  of  the  night.  I've  heard  of  two-o'clock-in-the- 
moming  courage,  but  I  never  heard  of  such  a  wholesale 
example  of  it.  I'm  sure  I  should  be  very  proud  of  a 
whole  house  whom  I  can  trust  to  play  the  man  like  this 
behind  my  back  I" 

There  was  even  some  little  feeling  in  the  tone  em- 
ployed by  Heriot.  Jan  could  not  understand  it;  he 
had  never  looked  upon  the  man  as  a  fool;  but  this  deep 
appreciation  of  an  utter  hoax  was  worthy  of  the  Spook 
himself.  Fellows  moved  uneasily  in  their  places,  where 
they  stood  uncomfortably  enough  between  table  and 
form;  one  or  two  played  with  what  they  had  left  of  their 
bread.  Sprawson,  to  be  sure,  looked  hotly  indifferent, 
but  his  truculent  eye  might  have  been  seen  running 
down  the  lines  of  faces,  as  if  in  search  of  some  smiling 
head  to  smack  afterwards  as  a  relief.  Both  Sprawson  and 
Charles  Cave  were  in  flannels,  the  popular  Champion 
having  found  a  place  in  the  match  which  had  begun  that 
morning.  But  even  the  great  cricketer  looked  less 
pleased  with  himself  than  usual.  And  the  only  smile  to 
be  seen  by  Sprawson  had  lightened  the  countenance  of 
old  Bob  Heriot  himself. 

"Where  all  seem  to  have  distinguished  themselves," 
he  continued,  "it  may  seem  invidious  to  single  out  in- 
dividuals. But  I  am  advised  to  couple  with  my  con- 
gratulations the  honoured  names  of  Cave  major  and 
Sprawson.    I  was  afraid  you  were  going  to  cheer" — the 


188  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

honoured  names  had  been  received  in  dead  silence — 
"  but  I  like  these  things  to  be  taken  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  I'm  sure  neither  Cave  nor  yet  Sprawson  would  wish 
to  pose  as  popular  heroes.  I  have  an  important  message 
for  them  both,  however,  from  a  very  important  quarter. 
My  friend  Major  Mangles,  the  Chief  Constable  of  the 
county,  wishes  to  have  an  interview  with  Cave  and  Spraw- 
son, with  a  view  to  the  early  apprehension  of  the  would- 
be  thieves." 

Living  people  are  not  often  quite  so  silent  as  the  boys 
at  that  moment  in  Heriot's  hall.  Major  the  Hon.  Henry 
Mangles  was  known  to  the  whole  school  by  sight  and 
reputation  as  the  most  dashing  figure  of  a  military  man  in 
all  those  parts.  Sometimes  he  played  in  a  match  against 
the  Eleven,  and  seldom  survived  many  balls  without 
lifting  at  least  one  out  of  the  ground.  Sometimes  he 
was  to  be  seen  and  heard  in  Heriot's  inner  court,  and 
then  the  entire  house  would  congregate  to  catch  his 
picturesque  remarks.  He  inhabited  a  moated  grange 
some  four  miles  from  the  school,  broke  a  fresh  bone  in  his 
body  every  hunting  season,  and  often  gave  Bob  Heriot  a 
mount. 

"When  does  he  wish  to  see  us,  sir?"  inquired  Cave 
major,  with  becoming  coolness. 

"This  afternoon." 

"Herein  the  town?" 

"No— at  his  place." 

"I'm  sorry,  sir,"  said  Cave,  firmly — "but  that's 
impossible.  '* 

"Any  other  time,  sir,**  suggested  Sprawson,  civilly. 
** To-day  we*re  both  playing  in  the  Sixth  Form  match.'* 

"  Et  tu,  Sprawson  ?  **  cried  Heriot,  merrily. 

"  I'm  the  tip  of  the  School  tail,  sir. " 

The  house  relieved  itself  in  laughter  led  by  Heriot. 


SIMILIA  SIMILIBUS  189 

"  Have  either  of  you  been  in  yet  ?  " 

"  I  had  one  ball,  sir.  It  was  the  last  of  the  innings, " 
said  the  brazen  Sprawson.  "The  Sixth  are  just  going 
in,  and  we  expect  to  have  Cave  there  all  the  after- 
noon. " 

"I'm  afraid  he  can't  go  in  first,"  said  Heriot;  "and 
you'll  have  to  find  a  substitute  to  field  for  you,  Sprawson. 
Or  rather  I'll  see  the  two  captains  myself,  and  explain 
about  you  both.  That'll  save  time  and  you  can  start  at 
once.  You  can't  do  these  doughty  deeds  behind  my  back 
and  not  expect  to  find  them  fame,  you  know. " 

"But,  surely,  sir,  this  is  a  most  high-handed  demand 
of  the  Major's?" 

Charles  Cave  had  never  been  known  to  display  such 
heat. 

"He's  the  Chief  Constable,  and  Chief  Constables  are 
high-handed  people,"  said  Heriot,  preparing  to  sign  the 
orders.  "I  shouldn't  advise  either  of  you  to  disappoint 
Major  Mangles,  much  less  when  he's  paying  you  a  com- 
pliment as  the  pair  who  specially  distinguished  them- 
selves in  the  night  of  battle.  He  wants  you  to  tell  him 
all  about  it.  There's  no  reason  why  that  should  take 
long,  and  if  you  drive  both  ways  you  might  be  back  be- 
fore any  wickets  have  fallen.  But  you  must  see  that 
when  a  house  is  entered  by  common  burglars  it's  a  matter 
for  the  police  and  not  for  us,  and  as  police  witnesses 
you're  in  their  hands  and  out  of  ours.  To  make  matters 
easy  for  you,  however,  the  Major  has  very  kindly  sent  his 
carriage,  which  I  think  you'll  find  waiting  for  you  now 
outside  the  quad.  If  I  were  you  I  should  go  just  as  you 
are,  and  make  no  more  bones  about  it. " 

And  Heriot  sat  down  to  attend  to  the  daily  detach- 
ment with  orders  on  the  tradesmen  requiring  his  signa- 
ture, while  the  rest  of  the  house  streamed  out  of  the 


190  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

hall  in  a  silence  due  partly  to  the  eminence  of  the  dis- 
comfited ringleaders,  and  partly  to  the  guilty  conscience 
of  the  mob  as  accessories  after  the  fact.  Sprawson  alone 
made  light  of  the  situation,  and  that  chiefly  at  the 
expense  of  his  superfine  confederate. 

"All  aboard  the  Black  Maria!"  said  Sprawson,  taking 
the  other  by  the  arm.  "I  say,  Charles,  old  cock,  I 
wonder  how  you'll  look  with  a  convict's  crop  and  a 
quiverful  of  broad  arrows?" 

And  for  once  the  great  Charles  made  use  of  the  baser 
language  of  his  inferiors,  and  tossed  his  tawny  mane  in 
anger  as  he  stalked  out  of  the  quad,  a  Phoebus  Apollo 
setting  in  a  cloud.  But  it  really  was  the  Major's  landau 
that  awaited  them,  a  cockaded  footman  standing  at  the 
door.  Phoebus  gave  a  dying  gleam,  and  stepped  in  as 
though  the  imposing  equipage  belonged  to  him. 

And  Sprawson  shook  every  hand  within  reach,  and 
played  several  kinds  of  fool  with  his  handerkchief  until 
the  landau  was  out  of  sight. 

Then  indeed  the  quad  became  a  Babel,  from  which  a 
trained  ear  might  have  extracted  a  consensus  of 
unshaken  confidence  in  Sprawson  and  Cave  major.  The 
house,  as  a  whole  entirely  trusted  them  to  hoodwink 
Major  Mangles  as  they  had  already  hoodwinked  the  Spook 
and  even  old  Heriot  himself.  It  was  the  last  feat  which 
made  all  things  possible  to  these  arch  impostors.  And 
only  a  severe  old  sage  like  Crabtree  would  have  enter- 
tained any  doubt  upon  the  point,  which  his  trenchant 
tongue  argued  against  all  and  sundry  till  the  quad  was 
empty  for  the  afternoon. 

Jan  happened  to  be  playing  in  the  first  game  on  the 
Middle,  while  Chips  had  a  humble  place  in  the  second 
Lower;  at  the  joint  call-over  for  the  two  grounds  (4.30) 
it  was  whispered  that  neither  Cave  nor  Sprawson  had 


SIMILIA  SIMILIBUS  191 

returned  to  the  Sixth  Form  match  on  the  Upper.  The 
whisper  had  swelled  into  a  Bible  Oath,  and  the  indis- 
putable fact  into  a  farrago  of  pure  fiction,  before  the 
return  of  the  missing  pair  made  it  unsafe  even  to  breathe 
their  names  in  Heriot's  quad.  They  were  not  quite 
the  same  young  men  who  had  made  a  state  departure  in  the 
Major's  landau.  Their  flannels  were  powdered  with 
the  drab  dust  of  the  wayside,  and  they  limped  a  little  in 
the  fives-shoes  for  which  they  had  changed  their  spikes 
before  coming  down  from  the  Upper.  Cave  moreover 
looked  a  diabolically  dangerous  customer,  to  whom  Loder 
himself  shrank  from  addressing  a  remark,  after  crossing  the 
quad  with  that  obvious  intention.  Sprawson  as  usual  pre- 
served a  genial  countenance;  but  the  unlucky  Bingley,  be- 
trayed into  a  tactless  question  by  a  mysterious  wink,  had  his 
arm  nearly  twisted  out  of  its  socket  as  he  deserved. 

"Now  I  feel  better!"  says  Sprawson,  with  ferocious 
glee.  "  I'm  much  obliged  to  you,  Toby,  and  I  hope  you'll 
regain  the  use  of  your  arm  in  time. " 

But  the  house  was  no  wiser  until  after  prayers.  At 
tea  Cave  major  never  spoke,  and  Sprawson  only  grinned 
into  his  plate.  But  Miss  Heriot  had  scarcely  with- 
drawn after  prayers,  when  Heriot,  taking  up  his  nightly 
position  before  the  fireplace,  asked  the  two  swells  how 
they  got  on.  And  the  entire  house  stayed  in  the  hall 
to  hear. 

"  Major  Mangles, "  returned  Cave  major,  with  cutting 
deliberation,  "  may  be  Chief  Constable  of  the  county,  and 
anything  he  likes  by  birth,  but  he's  no  gentleman  for  all 
that." 

"Really,  Cave?  That's  a  serious  indictment.  Why, 
what  has* he  done?" 

"You'd  better  ask  Sprawson,"  says  Charles  Cave, 
with  a  haughty  jerk  of  his  fine  fair  head.    He  looked  a  very 


192  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

stormy  Phoebus  now,  but  still  every  inch  that  grand  young 
god. 

"Well,Sprawson?" 

"I'm  sure  Cave  can  tell  you  better  than  I  can,  sir," 
says  Sprawson  of  the  wicked  humour. 

"But  Sprawson  will  make  the  most  of  it,"  says  the 
cricketer  with  icy  sneer. 

"It's  not  a  tale  that  wants  much  varnish,  sir,  if  that's 
what  he  means,"  said  Sprawson,  happily.  "I'll  tell  you 
the  facts,  sir,  and  Cave  can  check  them  if  he'll  be  so  kind. 
You  said  we  should  find  the  Major's  carriage  waiting  for 
us  outside  the  quad,  and  so  we  did.  It  was  the  landau, 
sir,  a  very  good  one  nicely  hung,  and  capital  cattle  tooling 
us  along  like  lords.  The  country  was  looking  beautiful. 
Roads  rather  dusty,  but  a  smell  of  hay  that  turned  it  into 
a  sort  of  delicate  snuff,  sir.  It  really  was  a  most  delightful 
drive. " 

"  Speak  for  yourself,  Sprawson,  if  you  don't  mind. " 

"I  shouldn't  dream  of  speaking  for  you.  Cave.  You 
didn't  seem  to  me  to  take  any  interest  in  the  scenery.  I 
may  be  wrong,  but  I  couldn't  help  thinking  your  heart 
was  at  the  wicket,  flogging  our  poor  bowling  all  over  the 
parish,  and  I  was  so  thankful  to  be  where  I  was!  But 
that  was  only  on  the  way,  sir,  it  was  nothing  to  what  we 
were  in  for  at  the  other  end.  The  footman  said  we  should 
find  the  Major  on  the  lawn.  So  we  did,  sir — playing 
tennis  like  a  three-year-old — and  half  the  county  looking 
on!" 

"Not  a  garden-party?"  inquired  Heriot  incred- 
ulously. 

"That  sort  of  thing,  sir." 

" My  poor  fellows!    Pray  go  on. " 

"  Of  course  we  couldn't  interrupt  him  in  the  middle  of 
his  set,  sir,  and  when  he'd  finished  it  he  crossed  straight 


SIMILIA  SIMILIBUS  193 

over  and  started  another  without  ever  seeming  to  see  that 
we  were  there.  Nobody  else  took  any  notice  of  us  either,  '* 
continued  Sprawson,  with  a  sly  glance  at  the  still  stately 
Cave.  "We  might  have  been  a  pair  of  garden  statues, 
or  tennis  professionals  waiting  to  play  an  exhibition 
match.  '* 

"  It  reminds  me  of  Dr.  Johnson  and  Lord  Chesterfield, " 
said  Heriot  darkly.  "Your  fame  is  perhaps  more  paro- 
chial, Sprawson.  But  is  it  possible  that  you.  Cave,  are 
personally  unknown  to  Major  Mangles?" 

"I  haven't  the  least  idea,"  replied  Charles  Cave  mag- 
nificentiy.  "  I  should  have  said  he  might  have  known  me 
by  the  times  I've  bowled  him." 

"And  you  never  thought  of  coming  away  again?  I 
shouldn't  have  blamed  you,  upon  my  word." 

"Of  course  we  thought  of  it,  sir,"  said  Sprawson. 
"  But  the  carriage  had  gone  round  to  the  stables,  and  we 
couldn't  very  well  order  it  ourselves." 

"I  should  have  walked." 

"It's  a  terrible  tramp,  sir,  on  a  hot  afternoon,  and 
in  rubber  soles!"  Sprawson  winced  involuntarily  at  the 
recollection;  but  the  thought  of  his  companion  consoled 
him  yet  again.  "Especially  after  bowling  all  the  morn- 
ing, "  he  added,  "  and  expecting  to  go  in  the  moment  you 
got  back!" 

"Well,  that  wouldn't  have  been  necessary,"  said 
Heriot.  "It  must  be  some  satisfaction  to  you  that  the 
Sixth  won  so  easily,  even  without  your  certain  century. 
Cave." 

"It  doesn't  alter  the  fact  that  he  had  to  walk  back 
after  all,"  said  Sprawson,  when  the  greater  man  had  been 
given  ample  time  to  answer  for  himself. 

"So  had  you!"  he  thundered  then,  not  like  a  great 
man  at  all,  but  in  a  voice  that  gave  some  idea  of  that 


194  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

homeward  tramp  and  its  recriminations,  in  which  Spraw- 
son  was  suddenly  felt  to  be  having  the  last  word  now. 

"But  surely  Major  Mangles  interviewed  you  first?" 
inquired  Heriot,  with  becoming  gravity. 

"Oh,  yes;  he  took  us  under  the  trees  and  asked  us 
questions, "  said  Sprawson,  forcing  the  gay  note  a  little  for 
the  first  time. 

"Questions  he'd  no  earthly  right  to  ask!"  cried  Cave 
with  confidence. 

"You  didn't  take  that  tone  with  Major  Mangles,  I 
hope.  Cave?" 

"  I  daresay  I  did,  sir, " 

"Then  I  can't  say  I  wonder  at  his  letting  you  both 
walk  back.  Of  course,  if  you  didn't  answer  his  questions 
satisfactorily,  it  might  alter  his  whole  view  of  the  matter, 
at  least  so  far  as  you  two  were  concerned  in  it. " 

"We  couldn't  tell  him  more  than  we  knew  ourselves, 
sir,"  protested  Sprawson. 

"Not  more,"  said  Heriot,  pensively.  "No — certainly 
not  more!"  It  was  only  his  tone  that  added  "if  as 
much" — and  only  the  few  who  heard  through  it.  "I 
hope,  at  any  rate,  that  you  got  your  tea?"  said  Heriot, 
with  a  brisk  glance  at  the  clock  over  the  row  of  cups. 

Cave  major  looked  blacker  than  before,  but  Sprawson 
brightened  at  once. 

"  Oh,  yes,  sir,  thank  you !  Lady  Augusta  sent  for  us 
on  purpose,  and  it  ended  in  our  handing  round  the  cups 
and  things.  That  was  the  redeeming  feature  of  the 
afternoon.     But  of  course  I'm  only  speaking  for  myself. " 

Cave's  chiselled  nostrils  spoke  for  him. 

"Well,  there  seems  no  more  to  be  said,"  remarked 
Heriot,  in  valedictory  voice.  The  attentive  throng 
parted  before  his  stride.  "I  must  confess,"  he  added, 
however,  turning  at  the  door,  "  that  I  myself  don't  under- 


SIMILIA  SIMILIBUS  195 

stand  the  Major's  tactics  altogether — if  you've  reported 
him  fully.  I  can't  help  thinking  that  something  or  other 
has  escaped  your  memory.  Otherwise  it  sounds  to  me 
rather  like  a  practical  joke  at  your  expense.  But  I  should 
be  sorry  to  suspect  a  real  humorist,  like  Major  Mangles, 
of  that  very  poor  form  of  humour,  unless" — a  moment's 
pause,  with  twinkling  glasses — "unless  it  were  as  a  sort 
of  payment  in  kind.  That's  the  only  excuse  for  practical 
joking,  in  my  opinion;  and  now  I  think  we  can  let  the 
whole  subject  drop.  I  only  hope  that  the  next  time  some 
knave,  or  fool,  thinks  of  breaking  into  my  house,  he'll 
have  the  pluck  to  come  when  I'm  at  home.  Good-night 
all!" 

The  house  filtered  out  into  the  quad,  drifted  over  to 
the  studies,  and  presently  back  again  to  bed,  with  few 
comments  and  less  laughter;  and  that  night  there  was 
little  talk  but  much  constraint  in  both  the  top  and  lower 
dormitories,  ruled  respectively  by  Sprawson  and  Cave 
major.  Only  in  the  little  one,  overlooking  the  street,  was 
the  topic  in  everybody's  mind  on  anybody's  lips;  and 
there  it  was  monopolised  by  Crabtree,  who  reviewed  the 
entire  episode  in  mordant  monologue,  broken  only  by  the 
shaking  of  the  bed  beneath  his  fits  of  helpless  mirth. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  FUN  OF  THE  FAIR 

There  were  three  days  in  the  year  when  the  venerable 
market-place  was  out  of  bounds,  all  but  the  draggled 
ribbon  of  pavement  running  round  it  and  the  few  shops 
opening  thereon.  The  rest  was  monopolised  and  pro- 
faned by  the  vans  and  booths  of  a  travelling  fair,  which 
reached  the  town  usually  about  the  second  week  in  March. 
The  school  took  little  notice  of  the  tawdry  encampment 
and  its  boorish  revels;  but  the  incessant  strains  of  a  steam 
merry-go-round  became  part  of  the  place  for  the  time 
being,  and  made  night  especially  hideous  in  the  town 
houses  nearest  the  scene. 

Nearest  of  all  was  Heriot's  house,  and  greatest  of  all 
sufferers  the  four  boys  in  the  little  top  room  with  the 
dormer  window  over  the  street.  Jan  was  still  one  of 
them,  and  Bingley  another.  But  Joyce  had  left,  and 
Crabtree  had  taken  charge  of  one  of  the  long  dormitories 
overlooking  the  quad.  Chips  Carpenter  and  a  new  boy 
had  succeeded  to  their  partitions;  and  if  in  one  case  the 
intellectual  loss  was  irreparable,  in  the  other  that  of  an 
incorrigible  vocabulary  was  perhaps  less  to  be  deplored. 

But  Jan's  was  still  the  silent  corner;  even  to  Chips 
he  would  have  little  to  say  before  the  other  two;  for  in 
this  his  fifth  term  he  had  fallen  on  another  evil  time.  It 
had  nothing  to  do  with  his  work,  however,  and  neither 

196 


THE  FUN  OF  THE  FAIR  197 

could  he  curse  his  luck  for  a  split  hand  or  a  maligned 
heart.  He  had  played  football  every  day  of  his  second 
winter  term — not  brilliantly,  for  he  was  never  quite  quick 
enough  on  the  ball — but  with  a  truculent  tenacity  which 
had  been  rewarded  with  the  black  trimmings  of  the 
Second  Lower  Upper.  In  form  he  was  no  longer  a 
laughing-stock;  and  his  form  was  now  the  Middle  Fifth, 
where  one  began  to  cope  with  Greek  iambics  as  well  as 
Latin  elegiacs.  But  all  three  Fifths  were  beds  of  roses 
after  the  Middle  Remove,  and  Dudley  Relton  an  angel  of 
forbearance  after  that  inhuman  old  Haigh. 

Dudley  Relton,  however,  besides  being  man  enough  to 
take  the  Middle  Fifth  on  his  accession  to  the  staff,  was 
that  pioneer  of  cricket  masters  who  had  made  a  note  of 
Jan's  name  at  the  valued  instigation  of  A.  G.  Swallow. 
He  had  also  watched  Jan  bowling  in  the  one  game  in 
which  he  had  played  on  the  Upper,  thanks  to  the  de- 
parted Sprawson,  and  he  had  his  eye  on  the  young  left- 
hander with  the  queer  individual  action.  But  it  was  the 
cool  eye  of  a  long-headed  cricketer,  and  Jan  never  read  it 
for  an  instant.  Chips  might  have  done  so  if  he  had  been 
in  the  form,  but  he  was  now  in  the  Upper  Fifth,  and  his 
sanguine  prophecies  were  neither  remembered  nor  re- 
newed. Jan  only  wished  that  Relton  would  not  look  at 
him,  sometimes,  almost  as  though  he  knew  all  about  a 
fellow;  and  it  rather  bothered  him  to  get  off  lighter  than 
he  deserved  for  a  false  concord  in  his  prose  or  a  vile  copy 
of  verses. 

But  that  was  not  his  trouble  on  the  nights  when  the 
steam  merry-go-round  enlivened  the  small  dormitory  with 
"Over  the  Garden  Wall"  and  "Lardy-dah,"  those 
egregious  ditties  of  their  day.  It  was  the  first  round  of 
the  All  Ages  Mile  that  kept  Jan  from  sleeping  either 
night  until  the  steam  tunes  stopped. 


198  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

On  the  strength  of  his  performance  the  year  before 
and  of  several  inches  since  added  to  his  stature,  Jan  had 
found  himself  seriously  fancied  for  a  place  in  the  Mile. 
The  dash  of  premature  notoriety,  combined  with  a  super- 
fluity of  sage  advice,  made  him  sadly  self-conscious  and 
over-anxious  before  the  event,  which  ended  in  a  complete 
fiasco  so  far  as  he  was  concerned.  It  was  his  fate  to  meet 
the  ultimate  winner  (down  with  his  eyes  the  year  before) 
in  the  very  first  heat.  Jan  dogged  him  as  gratuitously 
advised,  instead  of  making  the  running  as  flesh  and  blood 
implored.  And  having  no  spurt  he  was  not  only  badly 
beaten,  but  failed  even  to  come  in  third,  and  was  thus  out 
of  the  running  in  the  first  round. 

That  was  bad  enough;  hardy  enemies  of  the  Shockley 
type  took  care  to  make  it  worse.  They  became  suddenly 
alive  to  an  alleged  "roll"  put  on  by  Jan  in  anticipation 
of  his  success;  and  Jan  was  sufficiently  down  on  himself 
to  take  their  remarks  for  once  to  heart.  He  felt  still 
more  the  silence  of  many  who  had  believed  in  him; 
even  the  cheery  sympathy  of  a  few  only  aggravated  his 
sense  of  failure;  and  as  for  the  loquacious  Chips,  and  his 
well-meant  efforts  to  keep  the  dormitory  talk  to  any  other 
topic,  they  were  almost  as  maddening  as  the  steam 
merry-go-round,  that  filled  every  pause  with  its  infernal 
"  Lardy-dah."  That  tenacious  tune  had  supplied  the  ac- 
companiment to  his  hopes  and  fears  of  the  night  before;  it 
had  run  in  his  head  throughout  the  fatal  race;  and  now 
it  made  merry  over  his  utterly  idiotic  and  unpardonable 
failure. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  robust  Jan  had  grown  a  crop 
of  sensibilities  almost  worthy  of  his  friend  Carpenter, 
except  that  Jan's  were  wholly  and  grimly  inarticulate. 
But  he  was  now  sixteen,  and  that  is  the  age  of  surprises 
in  a  boy.    It  took  Jan  in  more  ways  than  one.    It  made 


THE  FUN  OF  THE  FAIR  199 

him  long  to  do  startling  things,  and  it  made  him  do 
some  foolish  ones  instead;  hence  his  hard  training  for  the 
mile,  and  his  actual  running  when  the  time  came.  It 
made  him  feel  that  he  had  done  less  than  nothing  at 
school  so  far,  that  he  was  less  than  nobody,  and  yet  that 
there  was  more  in  him  than  anybody  knew;  and  now  he 
wanted  them  to  know  it;  and  now  he  didn't  care  a  blow 
what  happened  to  him,  or  what  was  thought,  at  a  school 
to  which  he  had  been  sent  against  his  will.  There  was 
no  forgetting  that  at  a  time  like  this.  If  he  was  a  failure, 
if  he  went  on  failing,  well,  at  any  rate  it  would  be  a  score 
off  those  who  had  sent  him  there,  and  never  gave  him 
enough  pocket  money,  or  wrote  him  an  unnecessary  Une. 

So  Jan  came  back  to  a  very  early  position  of  his,  only 
trailing  the  accumulated  grievances  of  a  year  and  a  half; 
and  by  the  third  and  last  night  of  the  fair  he  had  the 
whole  collection  to  brood  upon,  in  gigantic  array,  in  pro- 
portion the  more  colossal  and  grotesque  because  he  could 
not  and  would  not  speak  of  them  to  a  soul.  And  there 
was  that  fool  Chips,  jawing  away  as  usual  to  anybody 
who  would  listen,  about  anything  and  everything  except 
the  sports. 

"  I  shall  be  jolly  glad  when  that  beastly  old  fair  moves 
on, "  quoth  Chips  after  an  interval  of  "  Over  the  Garden 
Wall." 

Jan  agreed  so  heartily  that  he  could  scarcely  hold  his 
tongue, 

"I  don't  know  that  I  shall,"  said  the  new  boy  in 
Crabtree's  corner.  "It  sounds  rather  jolly  when  you're 
dropping  off." 

Jan  could  have  pulled  every  stitch  off  the  little  brute's 
bed.     But  the  remark  was  very  properly  ignored. 

"  I  suppose  you  know,"  said  Bingley, "  tliat  two  fellows 
were  once  bunked  for  going  to  it?" 


200  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Going  to  what?"  asked  Chips. 

"This  very  fair." 

"They  mustVe  been  fools!"  said  Jan,  raising  his 
voice  at  last. 

"  I  thought  you  were  asleep  ?  "  cried  the  new  boy,  who 
had  no  sense. 

"You  keep  your  thoughts  to  yourself,"  growled  Jan, 
"  or  I'll  come  and  show  you  whether  I  am  or  not. " 

"They  were  fools,"  assented  Bingley,  "but  they  were 
rather  sportsmen  too.  They  got  out  of  one  of  the  hill 
houses  at  night,  and  came  down  in  disguise,  in  bowlers 
and  false  beards!  But  they  were  spotted  right  enough, 
and  they'd  got  to  go." 

"And  serve  them  jolly  well  right!"  said  Jan,  can- 
tankerously. 

"  I  don't  call  it  such  a  crime.  Tiger, " 

"Who's  talking  about  crimes?  You've  got  'em  on 
the  brain,  Bingley." 

"I  thought  you  said  they  deserved  to  be  bunked?'* 

"So  they  did — for  going  and  getting  cobbed." 

"Oh,  I  see!  You'd've  looked  every  master  in  the 
face,  I  suppose,  without  being  recognised?" 

"  I  wouldn't've  made  them  look  twice  at  me,  by  stick- 
ing on  a  false  beard,"  snorted  Jan,  stung  by  the  tone 
he  had  been  the  first  to  employ.  Chips  understood  his 
mood,  and  liked  him  too  much  to  join  in  the  discussion. 
But  Bingley  had  been  longer  in  the  school  than  either 
of  them,  and  he  was  not  going  to  knuckle  under  in  a 
minute. 

"It's  a  pity  you  weren't  here.  Tiger,"  said  he,  "to 
show  them  how  to  do  it. " 

"  It's  a  thing  any  fool  could  do  if  he  tried, "  returned 
Jan.  "I'd  back  myself  to  get  out  of  this  house  in  five 
minutes." 


THE  FUN  OF  THE  FAIR  201 

"Not  you,  old  chap!"  said  Chips,  making  an  unfortu- 
nate entry  into  the  discussion  after  all. 

"  I  would  so, "  declared  Jan  hot-headedly.  "  I'd  do  it 
to-morrow  if  the  fair  wasn't  going  away." 

Bingley  began  to  jeer. 

"I    like    that,    when    you    jolly    well    know    it    is 


going 


"I'll  go  to-night,  if  you  say  much  more,  you  fool!" 

Jan's  springs  twanged  and  wheezed  as  he  sat  bolt 
upright  in  his  bed. 

"You  know  you  won't  be  such  a  silly  Idiot,"  said 
Chips,  in  an  earnest  voice. 

"Of  course  he  does!"  jeered  Bingley.  "Nobody 
knows  it  quite  so  well." 

There  was  an  instant's  pause,  filled  by  a  sounding 
blast  from  the  market-place,  and  then  the  thud  of  bare 
feet  planted  on  the  floor. 

"Surely  you're  not  going  to  let  him  dare  you " 

"  Not  he ;  don 't  you  worry ! " 

It  was  Bingley  who  cut  Chips  short,  and  Jan  thanked 
him  as  he  slid  into  his  trousers  in  the  dark.  His  voice 
was  strange,  and  not  without  the  tremor  of  high  excitement. 
There  was  a  jingle  of  curtain  rings  across  the  dormitory. 
Carpenter  was  out  of  his  partition  in  defiance  of  the  rules; 
he  appeared  dimly  at  the  foot  of  Jan's,  into  which  Bingley 
was  already  peering  over  the  partition. 

"  Are  you  off  your  chump  ?  "  demanded  Chips. 

"Not  he,"  said  Bingley  again.  "He's  only  bunging 
us  up!" 

Bingley  might  have  been  an  infant  Mephistopheles; 
but  he  was  really  only  an  incredulous,  irritated,  and  rather 
excited  schoolboy. 

"You'll  see  directly,"  muttered  Jan,  slipping  his  braces 
over  his  night-shirt. 


202  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"  You'll  be  caught  to  a  certainty,  and  bunked  if  you're 
caught!" 

That  was  Chips,  in  desperation  now. 

"And  a  good  job  too!  I've  had  about  enough  of  this 
place. " 

That  was  the  Jan  of  their  first  term  together. 

"And  it's  raining  like  the  very  dickens!" 

This  was  the  child  in  Crabtree's  corner,  an  insensible 
little  sinner,  who  seemed  to  take  the  imminent  enormity 
as  an  absolute  matter  of  course. 

"So  much  the  better,"  said  Jan.  "I'll  take  a  brolly 
and  run  all  the  less  risk  of  being  seen,  and  you  see  if  1 
don't  bring  you  all  something  from  the  fair." 

"  It's  something  he's  gone  and  got  to-day, "  whispered 
Bingley  for  Chips's  consolation.  "It's  all  a  swizzle, 
you'll  see. " 

"  You  look  out  of  the  window  in  about  five  minutes, " 
retorted  Jan  from  the  door,  "and  p'r'aps  you'll  see!" 

And  out  he  actually  stole,  carrying  the  clean  boots 
that  he  had  brought  up  to  dormitory  in  readiness  for 
first  school,  and  leaving  Chips  in  muzzled  consternation  on 
the  threshold. 

The  rain  pelted  on  the  skylight  over  the  stairs.  It 
had  been  a  showery  day,  but  it  was  a  very  wet  night,  and 
Jan  was  almost  as  glad  of  it  as  he  had  just  professed 
himself.  He  saw  a  distant  complication  of  wet  clothes,  but 
as  a  mere  umbrella  among  umbrellas  he  stood  a  really  fair 
chance  of  not  being  seen.  It  was  still  only  a  chance;  but 
that  was  half  the  fun.  And  fun  it  was,  though  a  terrifying 
form  of  fun,  and  though  Jan  was  already  feeling  a  bit 
unsound  about  the  knees,  he  had  to  go  on  with  it;  there 
was  as  yet  no  question  in  his  mind  about  that,  and  hardly 
any  looking  back  at  the  ridiculous  combination  of  taunt  and 
impulse  which  had  committed  him  to  this  mad  adventure. 


THE  FUN  OF  THE  FAIR  203 

Conversation  had  ceased  in  the  top  long  dormitory;  in 
the  one  below  a  dropping  fire  was  still  maintained;  and 
the  intervening  flight  of  lead-lined  stairs,  taken  one  at  a 
time,  with  terrible  deliberation,  and  in  his  socks,  struck 
a  chill  to  the  adventurer's  marrow.  He  began  to  think  he 
really  was  a  fool;  but  he  would  look  a  bigger  one  if  he 
went  back  now.  So  he  gained  the  foot  of  the  second 
flight  in  safety,  and  paused  to  consider  his  next  move. 
The  flags  were  colder  than  the  leaden  stairs;  so  he  sat  on 
the  slate  table  while  he  put  on  his  boots;  and  the  slate 
table  was  colder  than  the  flags.  • 

His  first  idea  had  been  to  get  out  into  the  quad,  as  he 
had  got  out  into  it  his  very  first  morning  in  the  place, 
through  the  hall  windows.  But  the  rain  rather  spoilt 
that  plan;  the  rain  was  not  an  unmixed  blessing  after 
all.  The  umbrellas,  now  he  came  to  think  of  it,  were  kept 
in  the  lower  study  passage;  and  how  was  he  to  break  in 
there?  Of  course  the  outer  doors  would  be  locked;  and 
he  might  get  wet  through  in  the  quad,  before  effecting  an 
entry  into  the  lower  studies,  and  even  then  leaving  a 
dripping  trail  behind  him. 

No;  if  he  wanted  an  umbrella  he  must  borrow  old 
Bob  Heriot's.  That  was  a  paralysing  alternative,  but  it 
was  the  only  one  to  returning  humiliated  to  dormitory. 
After  all,  the  hat-stand  was  only  just  on  the  other  side  of 
the  green  baize  door  under  which  Jan  could  see  the 
thinnest  thread  of  light  from  Heriot's  outer  hall.  And 
dear  old  Bob  sat  up  till  all  hours;  that  was  notorious; 
and  his  study  was  beyond  the  dining-room,  leading  out  of 
it,  so  that  in  all  probability  there  would  be  two  shut  doors 
between  the  intruder  and  the  unsuspecting  master  of  the 
house. 

But  the  long  lean  figure  of  Robert  Heriot,  smoking 
his  pipe  in  the  inner  sanctuary,  cocking  a  quick  ear  at 


204  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

the  furtive  footstep  on  his  side  of  the  house,  and  finally 
confronting  the  audacious  offender,  with  bristling  beard 
and  flashing  spectacles,  made  all  at  once  the  most  por- 
tentous picture  in  Jan's  mind.  Heriot  of  all  men!  The 
one  master  with  whom  the  boldest  boy  never  dared  to 
take  a  liberty;  the  one  whose  good  opinion  was  best 
worth  having,  and  perhaps  hardest  to  win;  why  had  he 
not  thought  of  Heriot  before?  To  think  of  him  now  so 
vividly  was  to  abandon  the  whole  adventure  in  a  panic. 
Better  the  scorn  of  fifty  Bingleys,  for  the  rest  of  the  term, 
than  the  wrath  of  one  Heriot  for  a  single  minute  such 
as  he  had  just  gone  through  in  a  paroxysm  of  the  im- 
agination. 

Jan  found  himself  creeping  upstairs  more  gingerly 
than  ever  in  his  boots,  climbing  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
dropping  voices  in  the  lower  dormitory.  That  was 
Shockley's  guttural  monologue.  It  was  Shockley  who 
had  said  the  hardest  thing  to  Jan  about  his  running,  in 
just  that  hateful  voice.  It  was  Shockley  who  would  have 
the  most  and  the  worst  to  say  if  it  came  to  his  ears,  as  no 
doubt  it  would,  that  one  of  his  special  butts  had  made 
such  a  feeble  fool  of  himself  as  Jan  knew  that  he  was 
making  now.  And  then  life  would  be  duller  even  than  it 
had  been  before,  and  school  a  rottener  place,  and  himself 
a  greater  nonentity  than  ever.  Nay,  all  these  changes 
for  the  worse  had  already  taken  place  in  the  last  minute 
of  ignominious  retreat.  But  a  minute  ago,  yes,  a  minute 
ago  there  had  been  some  excitement  in  life,  and  a  fellow 
had  felt  somebody  for  once!" 

"Fm  blowed  if  I  do,"  said  Jan  deliberately  to  him- 
self; and  down  he  went  with  equal  deliberation  to  the 
green  baize  door.  It  opened  with  scarcely  a  sound.  A 
light  was  burning  in  the  little  entrance  hall  beyond. 
And  the  dining-room  door  was  providentially  shut. 


THE  FUN  OF  THE  FAIR  205 

Here  was  Heriot's  umbrella;  and  it  was  wet.  Hang- 
ing over  it  was  an  Irish  tweed  cape,  a  characteristic 
garment,  also  a  bit  wet  about  the  hem.  Old  Bob  Heriot 
had  been  out,  but  he  had  come  in  again,  and  it  could  not 
be  quite  eleven.  Unless  tradition  lied  he  was  safe  in  his 
den  for  another  hour. 

From  his  fit  of  cowardice  Jan  had  flown  to  the  opposite 
extreme  of  foolhardy  audacity.  What  better  disguise 
than  Heriot's  coat  and  even  Heriot's  hat,  the  soft  felt  one 
that  was  also  rather  wet  already  ?  Jan  had  them  on  in  a 
twinkling,  drunk  as  he  was  already  with  the  magnitude 
of  his  impudence.  It  would  give  them  something  to  talk 
about,  whether  he  was  caught  or  not.  That  was  Jan's 
way  of  expressing  to  himself  his  intention  of  contributing 
to  the  annals  of  the  school,  whatever  happened. 

The  front  door  had  not  been  locked  up  for  the  night, 
and  it  never  was  by  day.  Heriot  had  his  happy-go-lucky 
ways,  but  the  town  as  a  rule  was  as  quiet  as  the  sleepiest 
hollow.  Jan  managed  to  shut  the  door  almost  noiselessly 
behind  him,  never  thinking  now  of  his  return.  Out  in 
the  rain  the  umbrella  went  up  at  once;  like  an  extin- 
guisher, he  jammed  it  down  about  his  ears;  and  the 
instinct  of  further  concealment  drove  his  left  hand  deep 
into  a  capacious  pocket.  It  came  upon  one  of  old  Heri- 
ot's many  pipes.  Next  instant  the  pipe  was  between 
the  madman's  teeth,  and  Jan,  on  the  opposite  pavement 
of  a  dripping  and  deserted  street,  was  flourishing  the  um- 
brella and  pointing  out  the  pipe  to  three  white  faces  at 
a  window  in  the  shiny  roof. 

He  would  not  have  cared,  at  that  moment,  if  he  had 
known  that  he  was  going  to  be  caught  the  next.  But 
nobody  was  abroad  just  then  in  that  rain  to  catch  him. 
And  not  further  down  the  street  than  Jan  could  have 
jerked  a  fives-ball,  the  glare  of  the  market-place  lit  up 


206  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

the  stone  front  and  archway  of  the  Mitre.  And  the  blare 
of  the  steam  merry-go-round  waxed  fast  and  furious  as  he 
marched  under  Heriot's  umbrella  into  the  zone  of  light. 

"  He  wears  a  penny  flower  in  his  coat — 

Lardy-dah — 
And  a  penny  paper  collar  round  his  throat — 

Lardy-dah — 
In  his  hand  a  penny  stick, 
In  his  tooth  a  penny  pick, 
And  a  penny  in  his  pocket — 

Lardy-dah — lardy-dah — 
And  a  penny  in  his  pocket — 

Lardy-dah!" 

Jan  had  picked  up  the  words  from  some  fellow  who 
used  to  render  such  rubbish  to  a  worse  accompaniment  on 
the  hall  piano;  and  they  ran  in  his  head  with  the  out- 
rageous tune.  They  reminded  him  that  he  had  scarcely  a 
penny  in  his  own  pocket,  thanks  to  his  munificent  people 
in  Norfolk,  and  for  once  it  was  just  as  well.  Otherwise 
he  would  certainly  have  had  a  ride,  in  Heriot's  well-known 
foul-weather  garb,  on  one  of  "  Collinson's  Royal  Racing 
Thoroughbreds,  the  Greatest  and  Most  Elaborate 
Machine  now  Travelling." 

Last  nights  are  popular  nights,  and  the  fair  was  crowded 
in  spite  of  the  rain.  Round  and  round  went  the  wooden 
horses,  carrying  half  the  young  bloods  of  the  little  place, 
with  here  and  there  an  apple-cheeked  son  or  daughter  of 
the  surrounding  soil.  Jan  tilted  his  umbrella  to  have  a 
look  at  them;  their  shouts  were  drowned  by  the  shattering 
crash  of  the  steam  organ,  but  their  flushed  faces  caught 
fresh  fire  from  a  great  naked  light  as  they  whirled  nearest  to 
where  Jan  stood.  One  purple  countenance  he  recognised 
as  the  pace  slackened;  it  was  Mulberry,  the  local  repro- 
bate of  evil  memory,  swaying  in  his  stirrups  and  whacking 
his  wooden  mount  as  though  they  were  in  the  straight. 


THE  FUN  OF  THE  FAIR  207 

The  deafening  blare  sank  to  a  dying  whine;  the  flare- 
light  sputtered  audibly  in  the  rain,  and  Jan  jerked  his 
umbrella  forward  as  the  dizzy  riders  dismounted  within  a 
few  yards  of  him.  Jan  turned  his  back  on  them,  and  con- 
templated the  cobbles  under  his  nose,  and  the  lighted 
puddles  that  ringed  them  round,  like  meshes  of  liquid 
gold.  He  watched  for  the  unsteady  corduroys  of  Mul- 
berry, and  withdrew  at  their  approach.  But  there  was  no 
certain  escape  short  of  immediate  departure  from  the  fair, 
which  occupied  little  more  than  the  area  of  a  full-sized 
lawn  tennis  court,  and  covered  half  of  that  with  the  merry- 
go-round,  and  another  quarter  with  stalls  and  vans. 

One  of  the  stalls  displayed  a  legend  which  seemed  to 
Jan  to  deserve  more  custom  than  it  attracted. 


Rings  Must  Lie  to  Win 

Watch-la! 

2  Rings  Id. 
ALL  YOU  RING  YOU  HAVE. 


The  watches  lay  in  open  cardboard  boxes  on  a  sloping 
board.  There  was  a  supply  of  wooden  rings  that  just 
fitted  round  the  boxes.  Jan  watched  one  oaf  run  through 
several  coppers,  his  rings  always  lying  between  the  boxes 
or  on  top  of  one.  Jan  felt  it  was  a  case  for  a  spin,  and  he 
longed  to  have  a  try  with  that  cunning  left  hand  of  his. 
But  he  had  actually  only  twopence  on  him,  and  the  first 
necessity  was  two-pennyworth  of  evidence  that  he  had 
really  been  to  the  fair.  Yet  what  trophy  could  compare 
with  one  of  those  cheap  watches  in  its  cardboard  box? 

It  so  happened  that  Jan  had  a  watch  of  his  own  worth 
everything  on  sale  at  this  trumpery  fair;  but  he  could 
almost  have  bartered  it  for  one  of  these  that  would  show 


208  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

the  top  dormitory,  at  any  rate,  the  kind  of  chap  he  was. 
And  yet  he  was  not  the  kind  who  often  saw  himself  in 
heroic  proportions;  but  an  abnormal  mood  was  at  the 
back  and  front  of  this  whole  adventure;  and  perhaps  ho 
more  fitting  climax  could  have  inflamed  a  reeling  mind. 
He  produced  his  pennies  with  sudden  determination,  yet 
with  a  hand  as  cool  as  his  brain  was  hot,  and  as  cool  a 
preliminary  survey  to  make  sure  that  Mulberry  was  not 
already  dog^ng  him. 

"Two  rings  a  penny,"  said  the  fur-capped  custodian 
of  the  watches,  handing  the  rings  to  Jan.  "  An'  wot  you 
rings  you  'aves. " 

Jan  stood  alone  before  the  sloping  board,  kept  a  few 
feet  off  by  an  intervening  table,  and  he  poised  his  first 
ring  as  the  steam  fiend  broke  out  again  with  "Over  the 
Garden  Wall."  A  back-handed  spin  sent  it  well  among 
the  watches,  and  it  went  on  spinning  until  it  settled  at  an 
angle  over  one  of  the  boxes,  as  though  loth  to  abandon  the 
attempt  to  ring  it  properly. 

"Rings  must  lie  ^t  to  win,"  said  the  fellow  in  the  fur 
cap,  with  a  quick  squint  at  Jan.  "Try  again,  mister; 
you'll  do  better  with  less  spin." 

Jan  grinned  dryly  as  he  resolved  to  put  on  a  bit  more. 
He  had  heard  his  father  drive  hard  bargains  in  the  Satur- 
day night's  marketing  aforetime.  Old  Rutter  had  known 
how  to  take  care  of  himself  across  any  stall  or  barrow, 
even  when  his  gait  was  like  Mulberry's  on  the  way  home; 
and  Jan  had  a  sense  of  similar  capacity  as  he  poised  his 
second  ring  against  the  voluminous  folds  of  Mr.  Heriot's 
cape.  Thence  it  skimmed  with  graceful  trajectory,  in 
palpable  gyrations;  had  circled  one  of  the  square  boxes 
before  he  knew  it,  and  was  spinning  down  it  like  a  nut 
on  a  bolt,  when  the  man  in  the  fur  cap  whipped  a  finger 
between  the  ring  and  the  table. 


THE  FUN  OF  THE  FAIR  209 

"That's  a  near  one,  mister!"  cried  he.  "But  it  don't 
lie  flat." 

Nor  did  it.  The  ring  had  jammed  obliquely  on  the 
cardboard  box,  a  finger's  breadth  from  the  board. 

"It  would've  done  if  you'd  left  it  alone!"  shouted  Jan 
above  the  steam  fiend's  roar. 

"That  it  wouldn't!  It's  a  bit  o'  bad  luck,  that's  wot 
it  is;  never  knew  it  to  'appen  afore,  I  didn't;  but  it  don't 
lie  straight,  now  do  it?" 

"It  would've  done,"  replied  Jan  through  his  teeth. 
"And  the  watch  is  mine,  so  let's  have  it." 

Whether  he  said  that  more  than  once,  or  what  the  fur- 
capped  foe  replied,  Jan  never  knew.  The  merry-go-round 
robbed  him  of  half  that  passed  between  them,  and  all  that 
was  to  follow  blurred  the  rest  as  soon  as  it  had  taken 
place.  One  or  two  salient  moments  were  to  stand  out  in 
his  mind  like  rocks.  He  was  sprawling  across  the  inter- 
vening table,  he  had  seized  the  watch  that  he  had  fairly 
won,  and  the  ruffian  in  the  cap  had  seized  his  wrist.  That 
horny  grip  remained  like  the  memory  of  a  handcuff.  The 
thing  developed  into  a  semi-recumbent  tug-of-war,  in 
which  Jan  more  than  held  his  own.  The  watches  in  their 
boxes  came  sliding  down  the  sloping  board,  the  fur-cap 
followed  them,  and  a  head  like  a  fluffy  melon  hung  a-ripen- 
ing  as  the  blood  rushed  into  it.  Jan  beheld  swelling  veins 
in  a  stupor  of  angry  satisfaction,  and  without  a  thought 
of  his  own  position  until  a  rap  on  the  back  went  through 
him  like  a  stab. 

It  was  only  a  country  policeman  in  streaming  leggings; 
but  he  had  not  arrived  alone  upon  the  scene;  and  Jan 
felt  the  flooded  cobble-stones  heaving  under  him,  as  he 
relinquished  his  prize  at  once,  and  recoiled  from  the  gaze 
of  countless  eyes. 

Yet  the  policeman  for  one  was  not  looking  at  him.    The 


210  FATHERS  OP  MEN 

policeman  was  levelling  an  open  hand  at  the  melon-headed 
rogue,  and  reiterating  a  demand  which  only  added  to  Jan's 
embarrassment. 

"You  give  this  young  feller  what  he  fairly  won.  / 
saw  what  you  did.  I've  had  my  eye  on  you  all  night. 
You  give  him  that  watch,  or  you'll  hear  a  bit  more  about 
iti" 

Jan  tried  to  raise  his  voice  in  cowardly  repudiation, 
but  his  tongue  refused  the  base  office.  The  lights  of  the 
fair  were  going  round  and  round  him.  The  policeman, 
the  rogue,  and  three  or  four  more,  had  been  joined  by 
the  drunken  Mulberry,  who  was  staring  and  pointing  and 
trying  to  say  something  which  nobody  could  understand. 
The  policeman  sent  him  about  his  business  with  a  cuff, 
and  Jan  began  to  breathe.  He  felt  the  watch  put  into 
his  unwilling  hand.  He  heard  a  good-humoured  little 
cheer.  He  saw  the  policeman  looking  at  him  strangely, 
and  he  wondered  if  a  tip  was  expected  of  him.  Even 
at  that  moment  Jan  felt  a  bitter  wave  of  resentment 
against  those  who  sent  him  to  school,  against  his  will, 
with  half-a-sovereign  for  a  whole  term's  pocket-money. 
He  could  only  thank  the  policeman  with  a  stutter  and  a 
gulp,  and  slink  from  the  scene  like  the  beaten  dog  he  felt. 

Luckily  his  legs  were  cooler  than  his  head;  they 
carried  him  down  the  street  in  the  opposite  direction  to  his 
house  and  the  school  buildings;  and  he  had  not  taken 
many  strides  on  the  comparatively  dark  and  quite  deserted 
pavement,  when  his  mind  began  to  recover  tone  rapidly. 
It  recovered  more  tone  than  it  had  lost.  He  had  given 
himself  up,  and  now  he  realised  that  he  was  not  only 
safe  so  far,  but  successful  beyond  his  wildest  dreams. 
Not  only  had  he  been  to  the  fair,  but  thanks  to  the 
policeman  (whom  he  wished  more  than  ever  to  reward 
substantially)  he  had  come  away  with   a  silver  watch 


THE  FUN  OF  THE  FAffi,  211 

to  show  for  the  adventure.  What  would  they  have  to 
say  to  that  in  the  small  dormitory?  They  would  never 
be  able  to  keep  it  to  themselves;  it  would  get  about  the 
school,  and  make  him  somebody  after  all.  He  would 
acquire,  perhaps,  undying  fame  as  the  fellow  who  got  out 
at  a  moment's  notice,  and  went  to  the  fair  in  a  master's 
hat  and  coat,  and  won  a  prize  at  watch-la,  and  brought 
it  back  in  triumph  to  dormitory,  at  Heriot's  of  all  houses 
in  the  school! 

He  would  probably  tell  Heriot  before  he  left.  Old 
Bob  was  just  the  man  to  laugh  over  such  an  escapade, 
more  heartily  perhaps  if  one  kept  it  till  one  came  down 
as  an  Old  Boy.  Jan  felt  ridiculously  brave  again  under 
old  Bob's  umbrella,  which  he  had  dropped  for  a  moment 
during  the  fracas  at  the  fair.  That,  of  course,  was  why 
he  had  also  lost  his  head.  But  now  he  was  as  bold  as  any 
lion,  and  particularly  determined  to  do  something  at 
school  after  all,  so  that  he  might  come  down  as  an  Old 
Boy  to  recount  this  very  adventure. 

Not  that  he  had  the  egotistical  temperament,  even  to 
the  extent  that  (for  instance)  poor  old  Chips  had  it.  But 
this  was  that  abnormal  mood  which  had  only  been  inter- 
rupted by  a  minute  of  pure  panic  at  the  fair.  And  now 
the  swimming  pavement  floated  under  his  feet  like  air. 

Still  airier  was  an  overtaking  stride  which  Jan  never  so 
much  as  heard  until  a  strong  arm  slid  through  his,  and  a 
voice  that  he  heard  every  day  addressed  him  in  every-day 
tones. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

DARK  HORSES 

"Do  you  mind  my  coming  under  your  umbrella?" 

It  was  Dudley  Relton,  and  his  forearm  felt  like  a 
steel  girder.  Yet  his  tone  was  preternaturally  polite  as 
between  master  and  boy.  There  was  not  even  the  sound 
of  his  own  surname  to  assure  Jan  that  he  was  recognised. 
But  he  was  far  too  startled  to  attempt  to  take  advantage 
of  that. 

"Oh,  sir!"  he  sang  out  as  if  in  pain. 

"  I  shouldn't  tell  all  the  town,  if  I  were  you,"  returned 
Relton,  coolly.  "You'd  better  come  in  here  and  pull 
yourself  together." 

He  had  thrust  his  latch-key  into  the  side  door  of  a 
shuttered  shop.  Over  the  shop  were  lighted  windows 
which  Jan  suddenly  connected  with  Relton's  rooms.  He 
had  been  up  there  once  or  twice  with  extra  work,  and 
now  he  was  made  to  lead  the  way. 

The  sitting  room  was  comfortably  furnished,  with  a 
soft  settee  in  front  of  a  dying  fire,  and  book-cases  on 
either  side  of  it.  Jan  awoke  from  a  nightmare  of  certain 
consequences,  never  fully  realised  until  now,  to  find  him- 
self meanwhile  ensconced  in  the  settee,  and  much  fas- 
cinated with  the  muddy  boots  of  Dudley  Relton,  who 
had  poked  the  fire  before  standing  upright  with  his  back 
to  it. 

212 


DARK  HORSES  213 

"Of  course  you  know  what  is  practically  bound  to 
happen  to  you,  Rutter.  Still,  in  case  there's  anything 
you'd  like  me  to  say  in  reporting  the  matter,  I  thought 
I'd  give  you  the  opportunity  of  speaking  to  me  first.  I 
don't  honestly  suppose  that  it  can  make  much  difference. 
But  you're  in  my  form,  and  I'm  naturally  sorry  that  you 
should  have  made  such  a  fatal  fool  of  yourself." 

The  young  man  sounded  sorry.  That  was  just  like 
him.  He  had  always  been  decent  to  Jan,  and  he  was 
sorry  because  he  knew  that  it  was  necessarily  all  over 
with  a  fellow  who  was  caught  getting  out  at  night.  Of 
course  it  was  all  over  with  him,  so  what  was  the  good  of 
saying  anything?  Jan  kept  his  eyes  on  those  muddy 
boots,  and  answered  never  a  word. 

"I  suppose  you  got  out  for  the  sake  of  getting  out, 
and  saying  you'd  been  to  the  fair?  I  don't  suppose 
there  was  anything  worse  behind  it.  But  I'm  afraid 
that's  quite  bad  enough,  Rutter." 

And  Mr.  Relton  heaved  an  unmistakable  sigh.  It 
had  the  effect  of  breaking  down  the  silence  whicli  Jan 
was  still  only  too  apt  to  maintain  in  any  trouble.  He 
mumbled  something  about  "a  lark,"  and  the  young  mas- 
ter took  him  up  quite  eagerly. 

"  I  know  that!  I  saw  you  at  the  fair — spotted  you  in 
a  moment  as  I  was  passing — but  I  wasn't  going  to  make 
a  scene  for  all  the  town  to  talk  about.  I  can  say  what  I 
saw  you  doing.  But  I'm  afraid  it  won't  make  much 
difference.  It's  a  final  offence  at  any  school,  to  go  and 
get  out  at  night." 

Jan  thought  he  heard  another  sigh;  but  he  had 
nothing  more  to  say.  He  was  comparing  the  two  pairs 
of  boots  under  his  downcast  eyes.  His  own  were  the 
cleanest;  they  still  had  the  boot-boy's  shine  on  them, 
amid  splashes  of  mud  and  dull  blots  of  rain.    They  took 


214  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

him  back  to  the  little  dormitory  at  the  top  of  Heriot's 
house. 

"Why  did  you  want  to  do  it?"  cried  Relton,  with 
sudden  exasperation.  "Did  you  think  it  was  going  to 
make  a  hero  of  you  in  the  eyes  of  the  school  ? " 

Sullen  silence  confessed  some  such  thought. 

"You!"  continued  Relton,  with  sharp  contempt. 
"You  who  might  really  have  been  a  bit  of  a  hero,  if  only 
you'd  waited  till  next  term!" 

Jan  looked  up  at  last. 

"Next  term,  sir?" 

"Yes,  next  term,  as  a  left-hand  bowler!  I  saw  you 
bowl  the  only  time  you  ever  played  on  the  Upper  last 
year.  It  was  too  late  then,  but  I  meant  to  make  some- 
thing of  you  this  season.  You  were  my  dark  horse, 
Rutter.  I  had  my  eye  on  you  for  the  Eleven,  and  you 
go  and  do  a  rotten  thing  for  which  you'll  have  to  go  as 
sure  as  you're  sitting  there!" 

So  that  was  the  meaning  of  kind  words  and  light 
penalties.  The  Eleven  itself!  Jan  had  not  been  so  long 
at  school  without  discovering  that  the  most  heroic  of  all 
distinctions  was  to  become  a  member  of  the  school  eleven. 
Once  or  twice  he  had  dreamt  of  it  as  an  ultimate  possi- 
bility in  his  own  case;  it  was  really  Chips  who  had  put 
the  idea  into  his  head,  but  even  Chips  had  regarded  it 
only  as  a  distant  goal.  And  to  think  it  might  have  been 
next  term — ^just  when  there  was  to  be  no  next  term  at 
all! 

"Don't  make  it  worse  than  it  is,  sir,"  mumbled  Jan, 
as  the  firelight  played  on  the  two  pairs  of  drying  boots. 
The  other  pair  shifted  impatiently  on  the  hearth-rug. 

"I  couldn't.  It's  as  bad  as  bad  can  be;  I'm  only 
considering  if  it's  possible  to  make  it  the  least  bit  better. 
If  I  could  get  you  off  with  the  biggest  licking  you  ever 


DARK  HORSES  215 

had  in  your  life,  I'd  do  so  whether  you  liked  it  better  or 
worse.  But  what  can  I  do  except  speak  to  Mr.  Heriot  ? 
And  what  can  he  do  except  report  the  matter  to  the 
Head  Master?  And  do  you  think  Mr.  Thrale's  the  man 
to  let  a  fellow  off  because  he  happens  to  be  a  bit  of  a 
left-hand  bowler?  I  don't,  I  tell  you  frankly,"  said 
Dudley  Relton.  "I'll  say  and  do  all  I  can  for  you, 
Rutter,  but  it  would  be  folly  to  pretend  that  it  can  make 
much  difference." 

Jan  never  forgot  the  angry,  reproachful,  and  yet  not 
unsympathetic  expression  of  a  face  that  was  only  less 
boyish  than  his  own.  He  felt  he  liked  Dudley  Relton 
more  than  ever,  and  that  Dudley  Relton  really  had  a 
sneaking  fondness  for  him,  even  apart  from  his  promise 
with  the  ball.  But  that  only  added  poignancy  to  his 
self-reproaches,  the  bitterness  of  satire  to  his  inevi- 
table fate.  Here  was  a  friend  who  would  have  made  all 
the  difference  to  his  school  life,  getting  him  into  the 
Eleven  next  year  if  not  next  term,  fanning  his  little 
spark  of  talent  into  a  famous  flame!  It  was  too  tragic 
only  to  see  it  as  they  marched  back  together,  once 
more  under  Heriot's  umbrella,  to  the  house  and  Her- 
iot himself,  with  his  flashing  spectacles  and  his  anni- 
hilating rage. 

The  steam  merry-go-round  was  still  and  dumb  at 
last.  In  the  emptying  market-place  the  work  of  dis- 
mantling the  fair  was  beginning  even  as  the  church  clock 
struck  twelve.  Stalls  were  being  cleared,  and  half  the 
lights  were  already  out.  But  Heriot's  study  windows 
threw  luminous  bars  across  the  glistening  pavement,  and 
his  front-door  was  still  unlocked.  Relton  opened  it 
softly,  and  shut  it  with  equal  care  behind  the  quaking 
boy. 

"You'd  better  take  those  things  off  and  hang  them 


216  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

up,"  he  whispered.  So  he  had  recognised  Heriot's  gar- 
ments, but  had  deemed  that  aggravation  a  detail  com- 
pared with  the  cardinal  crime! 

Jan  himself  had  forgotten  it,  but  he  took  the  hint 
with  trembling  hands. 

"Now  slip  up  to  dormitory  and  hold  your  tongue. 
That's  essential.  I'll  say  what  I  can  for  you,  but  the 
less  you  talk  the  better." 

Jan  would  have  seen  that  for  himself;  even  if  he  had 
not  seen  it,  he  was  the  last  person  to  confide  in  anybody 
if  he  could  help  it.  But  as  it  was  there  were  three  fel- 
lows in  the  secret  of  his  escapade,  and  all  three  doubt- 
less lying  awake  to  learn  its  termination.  It  would  be 
impossible  not  to  talk  to  them.  Jan  could  only  resolve 
upon  the  fewest  words,  as  he  groped  his  way  to  the  lead- 
lined  stairs.  In  the  two  dormitories  overlooking  the 
quad,  the  last  tongue  had  long  been  still,  and  in  the  utter 
silence  Heriot's  voice  sounded  in  startled  greeting  on  his 
side  of  the  house.  Jan  shivered  as  he  sank  down  on  the 
lowest  stair  but  one,  to  take  off  his  boots.  Was  it  any 
good  taking  them  off?  Would  not  the  green  baize  door 
burst  open,  and  Heriot  be  upon  him  before  the  first  lace 
was  undone?  He  undid  it  with  the  heavy  deliberation 
of  an  entirely  absent  mind.  Still  no  Heriot  appeared, 
and  even  Jan  could  catch  no  further  sound  of  voices 
beyond  the  dividing  door.  He  crept  up,  dangling  his 
boots. 

The  small  dormitory  was  as  still  as  the  other  two. 
Jan  could  not  believe  that  his  comrades  had  fallen 
asleep,  at  their  posts  as  it  almost  seemed  to  him,  but  for 
an  instant  the  suspicion  piqued  him  in  spite  of  every- 
thing. Then  came  simultaneous  whispers  from  opposite 
comers. 

"Is  it  you,  Tiger?" 


DARK  HORSES  217 

"You  old  caution,  I  couldn't  have  believed  it  of 
you!" 

"You  didn't  know  him  as  well  as  I  did." 

"I'm  proud  to  know  him  now,  though.  Shake  hands 
across  the  'tish." 

"Thank  goodness  you're  back  I" 

"  But  how  did  you  get  back  ?  " 

"Same  way  I  got  out,"  muttered  Jan  at  last.  "Are 
you  all  three  awake. " 

"All  but  young  Eaton.    Eaton!" 

No  answer  from  the  new  boy's  comer. 

"He's  a  pretty  cool  hand" — from  Bingley. 

"  But  he's  taken  his  dying  oath  not  to  tell  a  soul" — 
from  Chips. 

"  He  won't  have  to  keep  it  long,  then."  Jan  was  creep- 
ing into  bed. 

"Why  not?" 

"  I've  gone  and  got  cobbed. " 

"You  haven't!" 

"I'm  afraid  so." 

"Oh,  Tiger!" 

"  But  you're  back,  man  ?  " 

"I  was  seen  first.  I'm  certain  I  was.  It's  no  use 
talking  about  it  now;  you'll  all  know  soon  enough.  I've 
been  a  fool.    I  deserve  all  I'm  bound  to  get." 

"I  was  worse!"  gasped  Bingley  over  the  partition. 
"  I  dared  you  to  do  what  I  wouldn't've  done  myself  for  a 
hundred  pounds.  But  I  never  thought  you  would,  either. 
I  thought  you  were  only  hustling.    I  swear  I  did.  Tiger!" 

Bingley  was  in  real  distress.  Chips  combined  sore 
anxiety  with  a  curiosity  which  Jan  might  have  gratified 
but  for  Dudley  Relton's  parting  piece  of  advice.  It 
occurred  to  Jan  that  Relton  might  have  been  thinking  of 
himself  over  that  injunction;   he  might  not  wish  it  to  be 


218  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

generally  known  that  he  had  taken  the  delinquent  up 
into  his  own  rooms  before  haling  him  back  to  his  house. 
At  all  events  Jan  felt  he  owed  so  good  a  fellow  the  bene- 
fit of  any  doubt  upon  the  point.  And  his  silence  was  the 
measure  of  his  gratitude  for  the  one  redeeming  feature 
of  the  whole  miserable  affair. 

Miserable  it  was  to  the  last  degree,  and  most  humili- 
ating in  its  utterly  unforeseen  effect  upon  himself.  His 
previous  expressions  of  magnificent  indifference,  as  to 
whether  he  was  expelled  or  not,  had  not  been  altogether 
the  boyish  idle  boast  that  they  had  sounded  at  the  time. 
He  had  meant  them  rather  more  than  less.  His  whole 
school  Hfe  had  seemed  a  failure;  his  early  hatred  of  it  had 
taken  fresh  hold  of  him.  The  provocation  supplied  by 
Bingley  had  been  but  a  spark  to  the  tinder  already  in 
Jan's  heart.  He  had  seen  no  prospect  of  creditable 
notoriety,  and  that  of  a  discreditable  kind  had  suddenly 
appealed  to  his  aching  young  ambition.  The  fact  that  he 
had  ambition,  however  crude  and  egotistical,  might  have 
shown  him  that  school  meant  more  to  him  than  to  many 
who  accepted  a  humdrum  lot  with  entire  complacency. 
But  Jan  was  not  naturally  introspective;  the  curse  of 
consciousness  was  in  him  a  recent  growth;  and  like  other 
young  healthy  minds,  forced  by  circumstance  into  that 
alien  habit,  he  misconceived  himself  on  very  many  points. 
It  had  seemed  a  really  fine  thing  to  have  got  out  at  night, 
a  fine  fate  even  to  be  caught  and  expelled  for  it.  But 
now  that  he  really  had  been  caught,  and  the  drab  reality 
of  expulsion  stared  him  in  the  face,  he  saw  not  only  how 
inglorious  it  all  was,  but  the  glory  that  might  have  been 
his  at  the  school  he  had  affected  to  despise. 

He  had  never  despised  it  in  his  heart.  He  knew  that 
now.  He  had  begun  by  hating  it  as  a  wild  creature  hates 
captivity.    He  had  learned  to  loathe  it  as  the  place  where 


DARK  HORSES  219 

an  awkward  manner  and  a  marked  accent  exposed  one 
to  incessant  ridicule.  But  even  in  the  days  of  hatred  and 
of  loathing,  when  his  chief  satisfaction  had  been  to  damp 
the  ardour  of  an  old  enthusiast  like  Chips  Carpenter,  Jan 
himself  had  been  conscious  of  a  sneaking  veneration 
for  the  great  machine  into  which  he  had  been  thrust. 
He  had  meant  it  to  make  something  of  him,  though  that 
was  not  quite  the  light  in  which  he  had  seen  his  own 
intention.  He  had  meant  at  any  rate  to  do  as  well  as 
other  fellows,  to  show  them  that  he  was  as  good  as  they 
were,  though  he  might  not  have  their  manners  or  address. 
That  had  been  the  master  impulse  of  his  secret  heart;  he 
could  trace  it  back  to  the  beginning  of  his  first  term,  to 
the  football  which  was  stopped,  to  the  paper-chase  in 
which  he  had  run  in  spite  of  them,  and  then  to  last  year's 
Mile  and  the  cricket  which  was  stopped  again.  How 
many  things  had  been  against  him,  and  yet  how  little  he 
had  suspected  his  own  stongest  point!  Only  to  think 
that  he  might  have  bowled  for  the  school  this  coming 
season. 

Relton  might  have  kept  that  to  himself.  He  had 
talked  about  making  things  better,  but  he  had  only  made 
them  worse  to  bear.  He  need  not  have  said  that  about 
Jan's  cricket.  It  was  enough  to  drive  a  fellow  mad  with 
the  thought  of  all  that  he  was  losing  through  his  criminal 
folly.  Individuals  filled  the  stage  of  Jan's  cruel  visions, 
Evan  Devereux  in  the  limelight;  what  would  he  have 
said  if  Jan  had  got  into  the  Eleven  ?  Might  it  not  have 
brought  them  together  again?  Evan  had  got  into  the 
Sixth  Upper;  he  had  been  in  the  First  Lower  the  term 
before  Jan  came;  and  Jan  had  been  left  out  of  even  the 
lowest  eleven  on  the  Middle  Ground,  which  Evan  had 
skipped  altogether.  It  would  have  been  a  case  of  the 
hare  and  the  tortoise,  but  in  the  end  they  might  both  have 


220  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

been  in  the  school  team  together,  and  then  they  could 
scarcely  have  failed  to  be  friends.  So  simply  did  Jan 
think  of  the  fellow  with  whom  he  now  seldom  exchanged 
so  much  as  a  nod;  he  was  nevertheless  the  one  to  whom 
Jan  felt  that  he  owed  more  than  to  the  whole  school  put 
together;  for  had  he  not  kept  Something  right  loyally  to 
himself? 

Then  there  was  old  Haigh.  He  would  have  seen  that 
there  might  be  something  in  a  fellow  who  could  not  write 
Latin  verses,  something  in  even  a  sulky  fellow!  And 
Jan  no  longer  sulked  as  he  used;  he  was  getting  out  of 
that;  and  yet  he  had  done  this  thing,  and  would  have 
to  go. 

Then  there  was  Shockley  and  all  that  lot,  the  rotten 
element  in  the  house.  If  he  had  really  got  into  the 
Eleven,  it  would  have  made  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
between  Jan  and  them.  They  never  touched  him  as  it 
was,  but  their  words  were  often  worse  than  blows,  and  far 
more  difficult  to  return.  But  if  Jan  had  got  into  the 
Eleven  .  .  .  and  Relton  spoke  as  if  he  really  would  have 
a  chance,  but  for  this  thing  that  he  had  done! 

He  lay  in  his  bed  and  groaned  aloud,  and  then  found 
himself  listening  for  even  an  answering  movement  from 
one  of  the  others.  He  felt  he  could  have  opened  out  to 
them  now,  to  any  one  of  them;  but  they  were  all  three 
evidently  fast  asleep.  The  church  clock  had  struck  two 
some  time  ago.  And  Jan  was  still  poignantly  awake;  he 
had  not  lain  awake  like  this  since  his  very  first  night  in 
the  school  and  that  partition;  and  now  it  was  most 
probably  his  last. 

To-morrow  night  he  m^ht  be  back  in  the  rectory  attic 
where  he  was  less  at  home  than  here,  and  back  under  the 
blackest  cloud  of  all  his  boyhood.  That  was  saying  some- 
thing.   Term-time  was  still  preferable  to  the  holidays. 


DARK  HORSES  221 

except  when  he  went  to  stay  with  Chips  and  see  some 
of  the  sights  of  London.  And  now  it  was  the  last  night 
of  his  last  term,  unless  a  miracle  was  wrought  to  save 
him. 

And  now  it  was  the  last  morning,  and  Jan  felt  yet 
another  creature,  because  he  had  slept  like  a  top  after  all, 
and  the  wild  adventure  of  the  night  was  no  longer  the 
sharp  reality  which  had  kept  him  awake  so  many  hours. 
It  was  much  more  like  a  dream;  it  might  or  might  not 
have  happened.  If  it  had  happened,  and  they  knew  it 
had,  why  were  Chips  and  Bingley  washing  and  dressing 
without  a  word  about  it  ?  Jan  forgot  about  young  Eaton, 
similarly  employed  in  the  fourth  partition;  but  at  the 
back  of  his  muddled  mind  he  knew  well  enough  that  it 
was  no  dream,  even  before  his  muddy  boots  afforded 
final  proof.  Yet  he  rushed  downstairs  as  the  last  bell 
was  ringing,  flew  along  the  street  without  a  bite  of  dog- 
rock  or  a  drop  of  milk,  and  hurled  himself  through  the 
school-room  door  as  the  praepostor  of  the  week  was  about 
to  shut  it  in  his  face.  As  though  it  still  mattered  whether 
he  was  late  or  not! 

He  thought  of  that  while  he  recovered  his  breath  dur- 
ing the  psalms;  throughout  the  prayers  he  could  only 
think  of  the  awful  voice  reading  them,  and  whether  it 
would  pronounce  his  doom  before  the  whole  school  at  ten 
o'clock,  and  whether  it  would  not  be  even  more  appalling 
in  private.  Jan  watched  the  pale  old  face,  forearmed 
with  another  day's  stock  of  stern  care.  And  he  wondered 
whether  his  beggarly  case  would  add  a  flash  to  those 
austere  eyes,  or  a  passing  furrow  to  that  formidable 
brow. 

Heriot's  place  at  prayers  ^as  such  that  Jan  could  not 
see  his  face,  but  his  shoulders  looked  inexorable,  and 
from  the  poise  of  his  head  it  was  certain  that  his  beard 


222  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

was  sticking  out.  There  was  no  catching  Heriot's  eye 
after  prayers;  and  yet  even  Relton,  at  first  school,  looked 
as  though  nothing  had  happened  overnight.  He  took  his 
form  in  Greek  history  with  that  rather  perfunctory  air 
which  marked  all  his  work  in  school;  but  so  far  from 
ignoring  Jan,  or  showing  him  any  special  consideration, 
Relton  was  down  upon  him  twice  for  inattention,  and  on 
the  second  occasion  ordered  him  to  stay  behind  the  rest. 
Jan  did  so  in  due  course,  and  was  not  called  up  until  the 
last  of  the  others  had  left. 

"I  didn't  keep  you  back  for  inattention,"  calmly 
explained  young  Relton.  "  I  could  hardly  expect  you  to 
attend  this  morning.  I  kept  you  back  to  tell  you  of  my 
conversation  with  Mr.  Heriot  last  night." 

"Thank  you,  sir." 

"I  began  by  sounding  him  on  the  punishment  for 
getting  out  at  night — even  on  the  venial  pretext  of  a 
lark — in  which  I  was  prepared  to  corroborate  your  state- 
ment as  far  as  possible." 

Dudley  Relton  was  already  falling  into  the  school- 
master's trick  of  literary  language,  and  here  was  at 
least  one  word  of  which  Jan  did  not  know  the  mean- 
ing. But  he  expressed  his  gratitude  again.  And  Relton 
gathered  his  books  together  with  some  care  before  pro- 
ceeding. 

"It's  perfectly  plain  from  what  he  says  that  the  one 
and  only  punishment  is — the  sackl" 

Jan  said  nothing.  But  neither  did  he  wince.  He 
was  prepared  for  the  blow,  and  from  Dudley  Relton  he 
could  bear  it  like  a  man. 

"That  being  so,"  continued  the  other,  stepping 
down  from  his  desk,  "I  said  nothing  about  last  night, 
Rutter." 

"You  said  nothing  about  it?" 


DARK  HORSES  223 

This  was  far  harder  to  hear  unmoved.  Jan  even 
forgot  to  say  "  sir. " 

"  Please  don't  raise  your  voice,  Rutter. " 

"But — sir!  Do  you  mean  that  you  never  told  Mr. 
Heriotatall?" 

"  I  do.  I  went  in  to  tell  him,  but  I  soon  saw  it  meant 
the  end  of  you.  So  I  said  nothing  about  you  after  all. 
You'll  kindly  return  the  compliment,  Rutter,  or  it  may 
mean  the  end  of  me. " 

They  faced  each  other  in  the  empty  class-room,  the  very 
young  man  and  the  well-grown  boy.  In  actual  age  there 
were  only  some  seven  years  between  them,  but  at  the 
moment  there  might  have  been  much  less.  The  spice  of 
boyish  mischief  made  the  man  look  younger  than  his 
years,  while  a  sudden  sense  of  responsibility  aged  the  boy. 

It  was  Jan  who  first  broke  into  a  smothered  jumble  of 
thanks,  expostulations,  and  solemn  vows.  There  were 
only  three  fellows  who  knew  he  had  got  out  at  all;  but  even 
they  did  not  know  that  he  had  actually  encountered  any 
master,  and  now  they  never  should.  His  gratitude  was 
less  coherent,  but  his  anxiety  on  Mr.  Relton's  behalf  such 
as  that  unconventional  usher  was  compelled  to  laugh  to 
scorn. 

"We're  in  each  other's  hands,"  said  he,  "and  perhaps 
my  motives  were  not  so  pure  as  you  think.  Remember 
at  any  rate,  that  you're  my  dark  horse,  Rutter.  Run  like 
a  good  'un,  and  you'll  soon  be  even  v/ith  me.  But  never 
you  run  amuck  again  as  you  did  last  night!" 

"  I  never  will,  sir,  that  I'll  swear. " 

"I  don't  only  mean  to  that  extent.  I  saw  a  pipe  in 
your  mouth  before  the  row.  You  weren't  actually  smok- 
ing, but  I  fancy  you  do." 

"I  have  done,  sir,"  said  Jan,  without  entering  into 
particulars  about  that  pipe. 


224  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Well,  give  it  up.  If  you  want  to  do  something  for 
me,  don't  go  smoking  again  while  you're  here.  It's  bad 
for  your  eye  and  worse  for  your  hand,  and  a  bowler  has 
need  of  both.  Run  as  straight  as  a  die,  Rutter,  and  let's 
hope  you'll  bowl  as  straight  as  you  run  I" 


CHAPTER  XIX 

FAME  AND  FORTUNE 

There  was  really  only  one  bowler  in  that  year's  Eleven, 
and  Chips  Carpenter  was  his  prophet.  There  were  others 
who  took  turns  at  the  other  end,  who  even  captured  a 
few  wickets  between  them  in  the  course  of  the  season; 
but  "the  mainstay  of  our  attack  was  Rutter,"  as  the 
Mag.  found  more  than  one  occasion  to  remark.  That 
organ  betrayed  a  marked  belief  in  the  new  bowler,  from 
his  very  first  appearance,  with  the  black  school  cap  of 
previous  obscurity  pulled  down  behind  his  prominent 
ears.  Its  rather  too  pointed  praises  were  widely  attrib- 
uted to  the  new  Editor,  none  other  than  Jan's  old  Crab- 
tree,  now  a  prsepostor  and  captain  of  Heriot's  house. 
The  fact  was,  however,  that  Crabtree  employed  Carpenter 
as  cricket  scribe  and  occasional  poetaster,  and  had  to 
edit  him  severely  both  in  prose  and  verse,  but  especially 
in  those  very  remarks  which  found  disfavour  in  other 
houses. 

Old  Crabtree,  who  had  suddenly  grown  into  a  young 
man,  made  by  far  the  best  captain  the  house  ever  had  in 
Jan's  time.  But  he  was  a  terrible  martinet.  You  had  to 
shut  yourself  up  in  your  study  to  breathe  the  mildest 
expletive  with  any  safety,  and  it  cost  you  sixpence  to 
cast  the  smallest  stone  in  the  quad.  Crabtree  was  not 
precisely  popular;   but  he  was  respected  for  his  scornful 

225 


226  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

courage  and  his  caustic  tongue.  It  was  his  distinction 
to  rule  by  dint  of  personality  unaided  by  athletic  prowess, 
and  during  his  four  tenns  of  authority  there  can  have 
been  few  better  houses  than  Heriot's  in  any  school. 
Shockley  likened  it  to  a  nunnery  without  the  nuns,  and  left 
in  disgust  for  reasons  best  known  to  himself  and  Crabtree. 
Buggins  and  the  portly  Eyre  grew  into  comparatively 
harmless  and  even  useful  members  of  the  community. 
And  the  fluent  and  versatile  Chips  learnt  a  lesson  or  so 
for  the  term  of  his  literary  life. 

"  I  wish  you'd  write  of  people  by  their  names,  instead 
of  'the  latter'  and  'the  former'!"  said  Crabtree,  coming 
into  Chips 's  study  with  a  proof.  "And  I  say,  look  here! 
I'm  blowed  if  I  have  'The  Promise  of  May'  dragged  in 
because  we  happen  to  have  lost  a  match  in  June!  And 
we  won't  butter  Rutter  more  than  twice  in  four  lines,  if 
you  don't  mind,  Chips." 

But  Crabtree  was  not  cricketer  enough  to  perceive 
the  quality  of  the  butter  apart  from  the  quantity,  and  some 
sad  samples  escaped  detection.  They  still  disfigure  cer- 
tain back  numbers  to  be  found  upon  the  shelves  of  the 
new  school  library.  "  Rutter  took  out  his  bat  for  a  steadily- 
played  five,"  for  instance;  and  "the  third  ball — a  beauty 
— bowled  Rutter  for  a  well-earned  eight."  They  were 
certainly  Jan's  two  longest  scores  for  the  team,  for  he 
was  no  batsman,  but  even  on  firmer  ground  the  partial 
historian  went  much  too  far.  "Better  bowling  than 
Rutter's  in  this  match  it  would  be  impossible  to  imagine. 
His  length  was  only  surpassed  by  his  break,  and  many 
of  his  deliveries  were  simply  unplayable."  Jan  really 
had  taken  six  wickets  on  the  occasion  of  this  eulogy,  but 
at  no  inconsiderable  cost,  and  the  writer  was  unable  to 
maintain  his  own  note  in  the  concluding  paragraph  of 
the  report:  "At  the  end  of  the  first  day's  play  I.  T.  Rutter 


FAME  AND  FORTUNE  227 

received  his  first  XI  colours,  which  it  is  needless  to  say, 
were  thoroughly  well  merited." 

Jan's  best  performance,  however,  was  in  the  match  of 
the  season,  against  the  Old  Boys  on  Founder's  Day. 
Repton  and  Haileybury  it  was  good  to  meet,  and  better  to 
defeat,  especially  on  the  home  ground  with  a  partisan 
crowd  applauding  every  stroke.  Yet  for  the  maintenance 
of  high  excitement  the  whole  of  the  rival  school  should 
have  been  there  as  well;  on  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be 
contended  that  even  the  Old  Boys*  Match  was  necessarily 
exciting  from  a  cricket  point  of  view.  It  had  other 
qualities  less  dependent  on  the  glorious  uncertainty  of  the 
game.  It  was  the  most  popular  feature  of  the  prime 
festival  in  the  school  year.  It  afforded  the  rising  gener- 
ation an  inspiring  glimpse  of  famous  forerunners,  and  it 
enabled  those  judges  of  the  game  to  gauge  the  prowess  of 
posterity.  The  Old  Boys'  Match  had  proved  itself  the 
cradle  of  many  a  reputation,  and  the  early  grave  of  one  or 
two. 

This  year  the  Old  Boys  came  down  in  force.  There 
was  old  Boots  Ommaney,  the  apple  of  the  late  profes- 
sional's eye,  who  had  played  for  England  time  and  again  at 
both  ends  of  the  earth.  There  was  A.  G.  Swallow, 
for  some  seasons  the  best  bowler,  and  still  the  finest 
all-round  player,  the  school  had  ever  turned  out.  There 
was  the  inevitable  Swiller  Wilman,  a  younger  cricketer 
of  less  exalted  class  who  nevertheless  compiled  an  almost 
annual  century  in  the  match,  and  was  the  cheeriest  crea- 
ture in  either  team.  In  all  there  were  six  former  cap- 
tains of  the  Eleven,  and  four  old  University  Blues.  But 
Jan  had  seven  of  them  in  the  first  innings — five  clean 
blowed — on  a  wicket  just  less  than  fast  but  as  true  as 
steel. 

"Well  bowled  again!"  said  Dudley  Relton  in  the 


228  FATHERS   OF  MEN 

pavilion.  "Don't  be  disappointed  if  you  don't  do  quite 
as  well  next  innings,  or  even  next  year.  But  on  that 
wicket  you  might  run  through  the  best  side  in  England — 
for  the  first  time  of  asking. " 

"It's  the  break  that  does  it,"  replied  Jan,  modestly; 
"  and  I  don't  even  know  how  I  put  it  on. " 

"It's  that  break  when  they're  expecting  the  other. 
Most  left-handers  break  away  from  you;  it's  expected 
of  them,  and  you  do  the  unexpected,  therefore  you  can 
bowl.  Your  break  is  the  easier  to  play,  once  they're 
ready  for  it.  If  you  only  had  'em  both,  with  your  length 
and  pace  of  the  pitch,  there'd  be  no  holding  you  in  any 
state  of  life.  You're  coming  to  the  Conversazione,  of 
course  ?  " 

"I  don't  think  so,  sir,"  answered  Jan,  blushing 
furiously. 

"  But  you've  got  your  colours,  and  all  the  team  came 
last  year.  It's  the  school  songs  from  the  choir,  and  ices 
and  things  for  all  hands,  you  know. " 

"  I  know,  sir. " 

"Then  why  aren't  you  coming?" 

Jan  looked  right  and  left  to  see  that  no  inquisitive 
ear  was  cocked  above  the  collar  of  contiguous  blazer.  And 
then  for  a  second  he  contemplated  the  characteristic  person 
of  Dudley  Relton,  as  dapper  and  well-groomed  and  unlike 
a  pedagogue  as  Jan  knew  him  to  be  in  grain. 

"I  haven't  got  a  dress-suit;  that's  why,  sir!"  he 
whispered  bitterly. 

"What  infernal  luck!"  Relton  looked  as  indignant 
as  Jan  felt — and  then  lit  up.  "  I  say,  though,  we're  much 
the  same  build,  aren't  we?  I  suppose  you  wouldn't  let 
me  see  if  I  can  fix  you  up,  Jan?" 

Had  it  been  possible  to  strengthen  the  peculiar  bond 
already  existing  between  man  and  boy,  these  words  and 


FAME  AND  FORTUNE  229 

their  successful  sequel  would  have  achieved  that  result. 
But  indeed  the  last  and  least  of  the  words  counted  for 
more  with  Jan  than  anything  that  came  of  them.  It  was 
the  first  time  that  Dudley  Relton  had  called  him  by  his 
Christian  name.  True,  it  was  a  school  tradition  that  the 
Eleven  went  by  theirs  among  their  peers.  But  as  yet  the 
Eleven  had  not  treated  Jan  precisely  as  one  of  themselves. 
He  was  younger  than  any  of  them,  and  lower  in  the  school 
than  most.  In  moments  of  excitement,  such  as  occur  in 
every  match,  there  was  still  an  unfortunate  breadth  about 
his  vowels;  and  when  he  pulled  even  his  Eleven  cap  tight 
over  his  head,  making  his  ears  stick  out  more  than  ever, 
and  parting  his  back  hair  horizontally  to  the  skin,  there 
was  sometimes  a  wink  or  a  grin  behind  his  back,  though 
the  little  trick  was  not  seldom  the  prelude  to  a  wicket. 
It  was  characteristic,  at  all  events,  and  as  quickly  noted 
by  the  many  on  the  rugs  as  by  the  rest  of  the  side  in  the 
field. 

"  Don't  hustie,"  you  would  hear  some  fellow  say;  "  the 
Tiger's  got  his  cap  pulled  down,  and  I  want  to  watch." 

The  saying  was  to  acquire  almost  proverbial  value. 
It  proclaimed  an  omen  as  sinister  in  its  way  as  the  cloth 
on  Table  Mountain,  or  the  sticking  out  of  Bob  Heriot's 
beard.  But  Crabtree  censured  an  allusion  to  it  in  his 
cricket  scribe's  account  of  the  Old  Boys'  Match. 

That  was  a  halcyon  term  for  Jan,  and  to  crown  all  he 
was  still  in  Dudley  Relton's  form,  and  treated  with 
cynical  indulgence  by  that  uncompromising  specialist. 
Relton  was  there  to  uphold  a  cricketing  tradition,  to 
bridge  a  gap  that  could  not  be  filled,  and  he  would  not 
have  upset  his  best  bowler  even  if  there  had  been  no  other 
tie  between  them.  The  other  tie  never  passed  the  lips  of 
either,  but  the  memory  of  it  sweetened  the  bowler's 
triumph,  and  very  likely  that  of  the  coach  as  well. 


230  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Heriot,  moreover,  was  delighted  to  see  a  colleague 
obtain  precisely  that  hold  over  Jan  which  a  rare  delicacy 
had  rendered  diflScult  in  his  own  case.  There  was  no  flaw 
of  jealousy  or  narrowness  in  Robert  Heriot.  He  was  a 
staunch  champion  of  the  much  younger  man,  whose 
methods  and  temperament  scarcely  commended  them- 
selves to  such  hardened  schoolmasters  as  Mr.  Haigh  and 
the  notorious  but  insensible  Spook.  But  then  Heriot  him- 
self was  having  a  very  good  term.  His  house  was  indeed 
in  order  under  the  incomparable  Crabtree,  nor  was  Rutter 
the  only  fellow  in  it  playing  for  the  Eleven.  Stratten  had 
got  in  for  wicket-keeping,  and  Jellicoe  was  almost  certain 
of  his  colours.  The  trio  provided  a  bit  of  the  best  of 
everything  for  the  house  eleven;  it  was  already  carrying 
all  before  it  in  the  All  Ages  competition;  and  Haigh  had 
not  spoken  to  Heriot  for  two  whole  days  after  the  hill 
house  went  down  before  "the  most  obstinate  blockhead 
that  ever  cumbered  my  hall." 

Jan  enjoyed  that  match;  but  it  must  be  confessed 
that  he  showed  far  less  enjoyment  of  all  his  triumphs  than 
did  Chips  Carpenter  on  his  behalf.  Chips  Carpenter, 
not  content  with  singing  his  praises  in  print,  was  now  pre- 
pared to  talk  about  his  friend  by  the  hour  together,  and 
became  so  vociferous  during  the  match  in  question  as  to 
have  it  straight  from  Mr.  Haigh  that  he  was  "behaving 
like  a  private-school  cad."  His  own  house-master,  on 
the  other  hand,  had  never  thought  so  much  of  him;  he 
knew  what  the  mere  enthusiast  would  have  given  to  be  a 
practical  exponent  of  the  game  he  had  to  talk  and  write 
about  instead. 

And  Heriot  liked  Jan  no  less  for  sticking  to  his  first 
friend  as  he  did,  and  would  have  given  something  to  have 
overheard  one  of  the  Sunday  evening  chats  which  the  pair 
still  had  by  weekly  permission  in  Chips's  study,  because 


FAME  AND  FORTUNE  231 

it  was  the  only  one  of  the  two  fit  to  sit  in.  Jan  had  not 
grown  less  indifferent  to  his  immediate  surroundings;  he 
had  still  no  soul  for  plush  or  Oxford  frames;  not  only  had 
the  grease-spots  multiplied  on  the  green  table-cloth  foisted 
upon  him  by  Shockley,  but  the  papers  on  the  floor  were 
transparent  with  blots  of  oil  from  his  bat.  Carpenter,  on 
the  contrary,  had  made  a  miniature  museum  of  his  tiny 
den,  and  his  lucubrations  were  promoted  by  the  wise  glass 
eyes  of  a  moulting  owl,  purchased  as  a  relic  at  Charles 
Cave's  auction. 

"  I  hope  you're  keeping  the  scores  of  all  your  matches," 
said  he  one  night.  "You  ought  to  stick  'em  in  a  book; 
if  you  won't  I'll  do  it  for  you." 

"What's  the  good?"  inquired  Jan,  with  the  genial 
indolence  of  an  athlete  on  his  day  off. 

"  Good  ?  Well,  for  one  thing,  it'll  be  jolly  interesting 
for  your  kids  some  day." 

Chips  had  not  smiled,  but  Jan  grinned  from  ear  to 
ear. 

"Steady  on  I  It's  like  you  to  look  a  hundred  years 
ahead." 

"Well,  but  surely  your  people  would  take  an  interest 
in  them?" 

"My  people!" 

Chips  knew  it  was  a  sore  subject.  He  knew  more 
about  it  than  he  ever  intended  to  betray;  but  he  had 
committed  his  blunder,  and  it  would  have  made  bad 
worse  to  try  to  retrieve  it  by  a  suspicious  silence  or  an 
incontinent  change  of  topic.  Besides,  a  part  of  his  knowl- 
edge came  from  Jan's  own  deliverances  on  the  sort  of  time 
he  had  in  Norfolk. 

"But  surely  they're  jolly  proud  of  your  being  in  the 
Eleven?" 

"  My  uncle  might  be.    But  he's  in  India.'* 


232  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"And  I  suppose  the  old  people  don't  know  what  it 
means?" 

"They  might.  I  haven't  told  them,  if  you  want  to 
know." 

Chips  looked  as  though  he  could  hardly  believe  his 
ears.  Comment  was  impossible  now;  he  shifted  his 
ground  to  the  sporting  personal  interest  of  such  records  as 
he  would  have  treasured  in  Jan's  place. 

"  You'll  bowl  for  the  Gentlemen  before  you've  done," 
said  Chips,  "  and  then  you'll  be  sorry  you  haven't  got  the 
first  chapter  in  black  and  white.  You  should  see  the  book 
A.  G.  Swallow  keeps!  I  saw  it  once,  when  he  came  to 
stay  at  my  private  school.  He's  even  got  his  Leave  to 
be  in  the  Eleven,  signed  by  Jerry;  but  upon  my  Sam  if 
I  were  you  I'd  have  that  in  a  frame!" 

It  was  a  characteristic  enactment  that  nobody  could 
obtain  his  Eleven  of  Fifteen  colours  without  a  permit 
signed  and  countersigned  by  House  Master  and  Form 
Master,  and  finally  endorsed  by  Mr.  Thrale  himself,  whose 
autograph  was  seldom  added  without  a  cordial  word  of 
congratulation. 

"I  believe  I  have  got  that,"  said  Jan,  "somewhere 
or  other." 

And  Chips  eventually  discovered  it  among  the  Greek 
and  Latin  litter  on  the  floor. 

"What  a  chap  you  are!"  he  cried.  "I'm  going  to 
keep  this  for  you  until  one  or  other  of  us  leaves,  Tiger. 
You're — I  won't  say  you're  not  fit  to  be  in  the  Eleven — 
nobody  was  ever  more  so — but  I'm  blowed  if  you  deserve 
to  own  a  precious  document  like  this!" 

Yet  there  was  another  missive,  and  souvenir  of  his 
success,  which  Jan  had  already  under  lock  and  key,  except 
when  he  took  it  out  to  read  once  more.  Chips  never  saw 
or  heard  of  this  one;   but  he  would  have  recognised  the 


FAME  AND  FORTUNE  233 

fluent  writing  at  a  glance,  and  Jan  knew  what  sort  of 
glance  it  would  have  been. 

This  was  the  little  note,  word  for  word: — 

"The  Lodge, 

"  June  1st. 
"Dear  old  Jan, 

"I  can  never  tell  you  how  I  rejoice  at  your 
tremendous  success.  Heaps  of  congratulations!  I'm 
proud  of  you,  so  will  they  all  be  at  home. 

"  School  is  awful  for  dividing  old  friends  unless  you're 
in  the  same  house  or  form.  You  know  that's  all  it  is  or 
ever  was!  Will  you  forgive  me  and  come  for  a  walk  after 
second  chapel  on  Sunday?    Always  your  old  friend, 

"Evan." 

Chips  knew  nothing  until  the  Sunday,  when  he  said 
he  supposed  Jan  was  coming  out  after  second  chapel  as 
usual,  and  Jan  answered  very  off-hand  that  he  was  awfully 
sorry  he  was  engaged.  " One  of  the  Eleven,  I  suppose?" 
says  Chips,  not  in  the  least  disposed  to  grudge  him  to 
them.  Then  Jan  told  the  truth  aggressively,  and  Chips 
made  a  tactless  comment,  whereupon  Jan  told  him  he 
could  get  somebody  else  to  sit  in  his  study  that  night. 
It  was  the  first  break  in  an  arrangement  which  had  lasted 
since  their  first  term.  Jan  was  sorry,  and  not  only  because 
it  was  so  open  to  misconstruction;  he  was  man  enough 
to  go  in  after  all  as  though  nothing  had  happened.  And 
silly  old  Chips  nearly  wept  with  delight.  But  nothing 
was  said  about  the  afternoon  walk  and  talk,  which  Jan 
had  enjoyed  more  than  any  since  the  affair  of  the  haunted 
house. 

It  was  just  as  well  that  Carpenter  had  been  left  out 
of  it  this  time.    Two  is  not  only  company,  but  to  drag  in 


234  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

a  third  is  to  invite  the  critics,  and  Chips  would  not  have 
found  Evan  Devereux  improved.  Indeed  he  saw  quite 
enough  of  Devereux  in  school  to  have  a  strong  opinion  as 
to  that  already;  but  they  never  fraternised  in  the  least, 
and  it  is  in  his  intimate  moments  that  a  boy  is  at  his  best 
or  worst. 

Evan  was  at  once  as  intimate  with  Jan  as  though  they 
had  been  at  different  schools  for  the  last  year  and  here 
was  another  reunion  of  which  they  must  make  the  most. 
He  took  Jan's  arm  outside  the  chapel,  and  off  they  went 
together  like  old  inseparables.  Evan  seemed  a  good  deal 
more  than  a  year  older;  his  voice  had  settled  in  a  fine 
rich  key;  his  reddish  hair  was  something  crisper  and 
perhaps  less  red.  But  he  was  still  short  for  his  age,  and 
by  way  of  acquiring  the  cock-sparrow  strut  of  some  short 
men.  His  conversation  strutted  deliciously.  It  would 
have  made  Carpenter  roar — afterwards — but  grind  his 
teeth  at  the  time.  Of  course  it  was  cricket  conversation, 
but  Evan  soon  turned  it  from  Jan's  department  of  the 
game.  Jan  followed  him  in  all  humility.  Evan  had  been 
a  bit  of  a  batsman  all  his  life.  True,  in  old  days  the 
stable  lad  had  usually  been  able  to  bowl  him  out  at  will, 
but  he  had  always  wished  that  he  could  bat  as  well  him- 
self. He  said  so  now,  and  Evan,  who  was  going  to  get 
into  the  third  eleven  with  luck,  was  full  of  sympathy  with 
the  best  bowler  in  the  school. 

"It  must  be  beastly  always  going  in  last,"  said  Evan. 
"I  expect  you're  jolly  glad  when  you  don't  get  a  ball. 
But  you  don't  have  to  walk  back  alone — that's  one 
thing!" 

"I'm  always  afraid  I  may  have  to  go  in  when  a  few 
are  wanted  to  win  the  match,  and  some  good  bat  well  set 
at  the  other  end.  That's  the  only  thing  I  should  mind," 
said  Jan. 


FAME  AND  FORTUNE  235 

"You  remember  the  Pinchington  ground?"  said  Evan 
abruptly,  as  though  he  had  not  been  Hstening. 

"I  do  that!"  cried  Jan,  and  Evan  looked  round  at 
him.  As  small  boys  they  had  played  at  least  one  match 
together  on  the  ground  in  question;  and  Jan  still  won- 
dered what  he  would  not  have  given  to  be  in  flannels 
then  like  Master  Evan,  instead  of  in  his  Sunday  shirt  and 
trousers;  but  Evan  was  thinking  that  the  school  bowler 
had  spoken  exactly  like  the  stable  lad. 

"I  got  up  a  match  there,"  he  continued,  "at  the  end 
of  last  holidays,  and  I'm  going  to  get  up  two  or  three  this 
August.  It's  an  awful  hustle!  We  play  the  Pinchington 
Juniors — awful  chaps — but  so  are  some  of  mine.  My 
best  bowler's  learning  to  drive  a  hearse.  We've  a  new 
under-gardener  who  can  hit  like  smoke.  I'd  have  got 
a  lot  myself  if  it  had  been  a  decent  wicket,  but  I  mean 
to  have  one  next  holiday. " 

"Does  old  Crutchy  still  bowl?"  asked  Jan,  grinning 
allusively. 

"Rather!  Hobbles  up  to  the  wicket,  clumps  down 
his  crutch  and  slings  'em  in  like  a  demon.  He  wcmld  be 
jam  on  a  decent  pitch!  I  was  going  to  say,  I  got  48  one 
day  last  summer  holidays.  It  wasn't  against  the  Juniors 
— it  was  a  boys'  match  at  Woodyatt  Hall —  but  I  did  give 
*m  stick!" 

"Well  done!"  said  Jan,  quite  impressed.  "I never 
made  anything  like  that  in  my  life.  You're  playing  for 
your  house,  aren't  you  ?  " 

"Rather!  I  should  hope  so.  I  got  19  not  out  the 
other  day  against  the  United — including  two  fours  to  leg 
off  Whitfield  major." 

And  so  forth  with  copious  details.  Whitfield  major 
was  the  hard  hitter  of  the  Eleven,  and  as  bad  a  fast  bowler 
as  ever  took  an  occasional  wicket.    Jan,  who  always  pre- 


236  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

ferred  doing  a  thing  to  talking  about  it,  and  who  wanted 
to  know  a  lot  of  things  that  he  did  not  like  to  ask,  made 
sundry  attempts  to  change  the  conversation.  He  asked 
after  the  horses,  and  was  both  sorry  and  embarrassed 
to  gather  that  the  stable  had  been  reduced.  He  tried 
Evan's  friends,  the  Miss  Christies,  as  a  safer  topic;  he  had 
always  admired  them  himself,  at  the  tremendous  distance 
of  old  days;  but  this  time  he  called  them  "  the  Christies," 
and  it  was  Evan  who  perhaps  inadvertently  supplied  the 
"Miss"  in  answering. 

No;  cricket  was  the  only  talk.  And  as  they  wandered 
back  towards  the  thin  church  spire  with  the  golden  cock 
atop,  looking  rather  like  an  inverted  note  of  exclamation 
on  a  sheet  of  pale  blue  paper,  it  was  made  more  and 
more  plain  to  Jan  that  he  was  not  to  regard  himself  as 
the  only  cricketer.  But  he  had  no  desire  to  do  so,  and 
nothing  could  have  been  heartier  than  his  attitude  on  the 
point  implied. 

"You'll  get  your  colours  next  year,  Evan,  and  then 
we'll  be  in  the  same  game  every  day  of  our  lives!" 

"  I  have  my  hopes,  I  must  say;  but  it's  not  so  easy  to 
get  in  as  a  bat. " 

"No;  you  may  get  a  trial  and  not  come  off,  but  a 
bowler's  bound  to  if  he's  any  good.  Anyhow  you're  in 
a  jolly  strong  house,  and  that's  always  a  help." 

"We  ought  to  be  in  the  final  this  year,"  said  Evan, 
thoughtfully. 

"And  so  ought  we,"  said  Jan. 

They  were  both  right;  and  the  last  match  of  the  term 
on  the  Upper  was  the  decisive  tussle  between  their  two 
houses.  It  was  also  Evan's  first  appearance  in  the  very 
middle  of  that  august  stage,  and  a  few  days  before  the 
event  he  told  Jan  that  his  people  were  coming  down  to 
see  it.    Jan  could  not  conceal  his  nervousness  at  the 


FAME  AND  FORTUNE  237 

prospect.  But  it  left  him  more  than  ever  detennined 
that  Heriot's  should  have  the  cup.  He  had  some  flannels 
specially  done  up  at  the  last  moment,  and  his  hair  cut 
the  day  before  the  match. 

But  he  pulled  his  cap  down  further  than  ever  when  he 
took  the  ball,  and  it  gashed  his  back  hair  the  more  con- 
spicuously to  the  scalp.  In  one  word,  and  in  spite  of 
his  spotless  flannels,  he  looked  dreadfully  like  the  rather 
palpable  "pro."  of  those  days,  and  his  bowling  only 
fostered  the  suggestion.  There  was  a  regularity  about  the 
short  quick  run,  an  amount  of  character  in  the  twiddling 
fore-arm  action,  a  precision  of  length  and  a  flick  off  the 
pitch  that  set  a  professional  stamp  upon  his  least  deadly 
delivery.  Above  all  there  was  that  naturally  unnatural 
break  which  Jan  only  lost  when  he  began  to  think  about 
it,  or  when  the  ground  was  a  great  deal  harder  than 
he  was  fortunate  enough  to  find  it  in  the  final  house- 
match. 

It  was  just  the  least  bit  dead  that  day — a  heart- 
breaking wicket  for  most  bowlers — but  one  that  might 
have  been  specially  prepared  for  Jan.  He  had  the 
mysterious  power  of  making  his  own  pace  off  such  a 
pitch,  and  the  fact  that  the  ball  only  rose  stump-high 
simply  enabled  him  to  bowl  bailer  after  bailer,  one  and 
all  with  that  uncanny  turn  from  the  off.  Variety  was 
lacking;  a  first-class  batsman  would  have  taken  the 
measure  of  the  attack  in  about  an  over;  but  there  was 
scarcely  the  makings  of  one  such  in  the  Lodge  team,  and 
great  was  the  fall  of  that  strong  house.  Statistics  would 
be  a  shame.  Suffice  it  that  Heriot's  lost  the  toss,  but 
won  a  low-scoring  match  by  an  innings  in  the  course  of 
the  afternoon.  Jan  had  fifteen  wickets  in  all,  including 
Evan's  twice  over.  The  first  time  he  was  assisted  by  a 
snap-catch  in  the  slips,  and  Evan's  nought  might  fairly  be 


238  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

accounted  hard  lines.  But  in  the  second  innings  it  was  a 
complex  moment  for  Jan  when  Evan  strutted  in  with  all 
the  air  of  a  saviour  of  situations.  Jan  did  not  want  him 
to  fail  again,  and  yet  he  did  because  Evan's  people  were 
looking  on!  He  felt  mean  and  yet  exalted  as  he  led  off 
with  a  trimmer,  and  the  leg-bail  hit  Stratten  in  the  face. 

Then  Jan  showed  want  of  tact. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry!"  he  stammered  out,  but  Evan 
passed  him  in  a  flame,  without  look  or  sign  of  having 
heard. 

Mr.  Devereux,  however,  could  afford  to  treat  the  whole 
affair  differently.    And  he  did. 

He  was  a  fine-looking  man  of  the  florid  type,  with  a 
light  grey  bowler,  a  flower  in  his  coat,  and  a  boisterous 
self-confidence,  which  made  him  almost  too  conspicuous 
on  the  unequal  field.  Mr.  Devereux  was  far  from  grudg- 
ing Jan  his  great  success;  on  the  contrary,  he  seemed  only 
too  inclined  to  transfer  his  paternal  pride  to  his  old  coach- 
man's son,  and  in  reality  was  sorely  tempted  to  boast 
of  him  in  that  relationship.  Some  saving  sense  of  fit- 
ness, abetted  by  an  early  hint  (but  nothing  more)  from 
Heriot,  sealed  his  itching  lips;  but  in  talking  to  the  lad 
himself,  Mr.  Devereux  naturally  saw  no  necessity  for 
restraint. 

"I  remember  when  you  used  to  bowl  to  my  son  in 
front  of  your  father's — ah — in  front  of  those  cottages  of 
mine — with  a  solid  india-rubber  ball!  We  never  thought 
of  all  this  then,  did  we  ?  But  I  congratulate  you,  my  lad, 
and  very  glad  I  am  to  have  the  opportunity." 

"Thank  you  very  much,  sir,"  said  Jan,  in  a  grateful 
glow  from  head  to  heel. 

"I'll  tell  them  all  about  you  down  there;  and  some 
day  you  must  come  and  stay  with  us,  as  a  guest,  you  know, 
and  play  a  match  of  two  for  Evan  and  his  friends  at 


FAME  AND  FORTUNE  239 

Pinchington.    You'll  be  one  too  many  for  the  village  lads. 
Quite  a  hero,  you'll  find  yourself." 

Jan  was  not  so  sure  what  to  say  to  that;  and  he  could 
only  be  as  fervid  as  before  when  Mr.  Devereux  slipped  a 
sovereign  into  his  hand,  though  it  was  the  first  that  he  had 
received  all  at  once  in  all  his  schooldays. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  EVE  OF  OFFICE 

Thenceforward  the  career  of  Jan  was  that  of  the  pubhc- 
school  cricketer  who  is  less  readily  remembered  as  any- 
thing else.  One  forgets  that  he  had  to  rush  out  to  early 
school  like  other  people,  and  even  work  harder  than 
most  to  keep  afloat  in  form.  It  takes  a  dip  into  bound 
volumes  of  the  Mag.  to  assure  one  that  "  solid  work  in  the 
bullies"  (of  the  old  hybrid  game)  eventually  landed  him 
into  the  Fifteen,  and  that  he  was  placed  more  than  once 
in  the  Mile  and  the  Steeplechase  without  ever  winning 
either.  Those  were  not  Jan's  strong  points,  though  he 
took  them  no  less  seriously  at  the  time.  They  kept  him 
fit  during  the  winter,  but  not  through  them  would  his 
name  be  alive  to-day.  Some  of  his  bowling  analyses,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  as  unforgettable  as  the  date  of  the 
Conquest;  and  it  is  with  his  Eleven  cap  pulled  down 
over  his  eyes,  and  a  grim  twinkle  under  the  peak,  that 
the  mind's  eye  sees  him  first  and  almost  last. 

His  second  year  in  the  Eleven  was  nearly — not  quite 
— ^as  successful  as  his  first.  He  took  even  more  Hailey- 
burian  and  Reptonian  wickets,  but  experienced  batsmen 
who  came  down  with  other  teams  made  sometimes  almost 
light  of  that  clockwork  break  from  the  off.  The  cheery 
Swiller  (who  of  course  owed  his  nickname  to  a  notorious 
teetotalism)  did  not  again  fail  to  compile  his  habitual 

240 


THE  EVE  OF  OFFICE  241 

century  for  the  Old  Boys.  It  was  a  hotter  summer,  and 
the  wickets  just  a  trifle  faster  than  those  after  Jan's  own 
heart. 

Still  he  had  a  fine  season,  and  a  marvellously  happy 
one.  He  was  now  somebody  on  the  side;  not  a  mere 
upstart  bowler  of  no  previous  status,  rather  out  of  it  with 
the  Eleven  off  the  field.  The  new  captain  was  a  very  nice 
fellow  in  one  of  the  hill  houses;  he  not  only  gave  Jan  his 
choice  of  ends  on  all  occasions,  and  an  absolute  say  in  the 
placing  of  his  field,  but  took  his  best  bowler's  opinion  on 
the  others  and  consulted  him  on  all  sorts  of  points.  Jan 
found  himself  in  a  position  of  high  authority  without  the 
cares  of  office,  and  the  day  came  when  he  appreciated  the 
distinction. 

Stratten  and  Jellicoe  were  in  the  team  for  their  second 
and  last  year,  and  the  All  Ages  cup  remained  undisturbed 
on  the  baize  shelf  in  Heriot's  hall.  Crabtree,  moreover, 
was  still  the  captain  of  a  house  in  which  his  word  was 
martial  law.  But  he  also  was  leaving;  all  the  bigwigs 
were,  except  Jan  himself.  And  after  the  holidays  Heriot 
had  to  face  a  younger  house  than  for  some  years  past, 
with  a  certain  colourless  praepostor  in  command  till 
Christmas,  and  only  old  Chips  Carpenter  to  succeed 
him. 

Chips  was  now  a  praepostor  himself,  being  actually  in 
the  Upper  Sixth,  thanks  to  the  deliberately  modest 
standard  of  learning  throughout  the  school.  He  could 
write  Latin  verses  against  the  best  of  them,  however,  and 
he  now  edited  the  precious  periodical  to  which  he  had 
so  long  contributed.  This  gave  him  his  own  standing 
in  the  school,  while  a  really  genial  temperament  was  no 
longer  discounted  by  the  somewhat  assertive  piety  of  his 
earlier  youth.  And  yet  it  was  not  only  a  touch  of  priggish- 
ness  that  Chips  had  outgrown;    the  old  enthusiasm  was 


242  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

often  missing;  it  was  his  bad  patch  of  boyhood,  and  he 
had  struck  it  rather  later  than  most,  and  was  taking  him- 
self to  heart  under  all  the  jokes  and  writings  of  this 
period. 

Chips  was  still  in  no  eleven  at  all;  he  thought  he 
ought  to  have  been  in  one  on  the  Middle,  at  any  rate,  and 
perhaps  he  was  right.  He  was  a  very  ardent  wicket- 
keeper,  who  had  incurred  a  certain  flogging  in  his  saintliest 
days  by  cutting  a  detention  when  engaged  to  keep  wicket 
on  the  Lower.  In  the  winter  months,  with  his  new 
Lillywhite  usually  concealed  about  his  person,  he  used  still 
to  dream  of  runs  from  his  own  unhandy  bat;  but  in  his 
heart  he  must  have  known  his  only  place  in  the  game,  as 
student  and  trumpeter  of  glories  beyond  his  grasp.  Was 
he  not  frank  about  it  in  his  lament  for  the  holiday  task  he 
had  failed  to  learn  "in  the  holidays,  while  there  was 
time?" 

"But  'tis  no  use  lamenting.    What  is  done 
You  couldn't  undo  if  you  tried  .  .  . 
O,  if  only  they'd  set  us  some  Wisden, 
Or  Lillywhite' 8  Guide!" 

Many  fellows  liked  old  Chips  nowadays,  and  more 
took  a  charitable  view  of  his  writings;  but  few  would 
have  picked  him  out  as  a  bom  leader  of  men,  and  he 
certainly  had  no  practice  in  the  litde  dormitory  at  the  top 
of  the  house.  It  was  rather  by  way  of  being  a  cripples' 
ward,  for  Carpenter  was  still  debarred  from  football  by 
his  bronchitis,  and  the  small  boy  Eaton,  who  was  not  so 
young  as  he  looked,  but  an  amusing  rogue,  had  trumped 
up  a  heart  of  the  type  imputed  to  Jan  Rutter  when  he 
fainted  in  the  Spook's  mathematical.  Eaton  was  a  shame- 
less "  sloper,"  but  he  had  heaps  of  character,  and  he  saved 
the  prospective  captain  of  the  house  some  embarrassment 
by  leaving  at  Christmas. 


THE  EVE  OF  OFFICE  243 

Chips  had  taken  to  photography  as  a  winter  pursuit; 
and  so  rare  was  the  hobby  in  those  days  that  for  some 
time  he  was  the  only  photographer  in  the  school.  Eaton 
accompanied  him  on  many  a  foray,  and  swung  the  tripod 
while  Chips  changed  the  case  containing  the  camera  from 
hand  to  hand.  They  obtained  excellent  negatives  of  some 
of  the  delightful  old  churches  in  the  neighbourhood, 
including  the  belfry  tower  at  Burston,  seen  through  its 
leafless  beeches,  and  the  alabaster  monument  in  the 
chancel  at  Stoke  Overton.  But  by  far  the  most  popular 
success  was  the  speaking  picture  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Maltby, 
on  the  doorstep  of  their  famous  resort  in  the  market- 
place; to  satisfy  the  vast  demand  for  that  masterpiece, 
the  prajpostor  was  placed  in  a  bit  of  a  quandary,  but  young 
Eaton  borrowed  the  negative  and  did  a  roaring  trade  at 
sixpence  a  print. 

In  the  meantime  Evan  Devereux  had  been  elected 
Captain  of  Games:  a  most  important  officer  in  the  Easter 
term,  the  games  in  question  being  nothing  of  the  kind, 
except  in  an  Olympic  sense,  but  just  the  ordinary  athletic 
sports.  The  Captain  of  Games  arranged  the  heats,  fixed 
the  times,  acted  as  starter,  superintended  everything  and 
exercised  over  all  concerned  a  control  that  just  suited 
Evan.  He  proved  himself  a  bom  master  of  ceremonies, 
with  a  jealous  eye  for  detail,  but  a  little  apt  to  fuss  and 
strut  at  the  last  moment  on  a  course  cleared  of  the  com- 
mon herd.  He  dressed  well,  and  had  a  pointed  way  of 
taking  off  his  hat  to  the  master's  ladies.  There  were 
those,  of  course,  who  crudely  described  his  mannerisms  as 
mere  "roll";  but  on  the  whole  it  would  have  been  hard 
to  find  a  keener  or  more  capable  Captain  of  Games. 

The  office  was  usually  held  by  a  member  of  the  Eleven 
or  of  the  Fifteen.  Evan  was  in  neither  yet,  though  on  the 
edge  of  both.    On  the  other  hand,  he  was  very  high  in  the 


244  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Upper  Sixth;  for  he  had  lost  neither  his  facility  for  ac- 
quiring knowledge,  nor  his  inveterate  horror  of  laying 
himself  open  to  rebuke. 

It  is  at  first  sight  a  little  odd  that  such  a  blameless 
boy  should  ever  have  made  a  friend  of  one  Sandham,  a  big 
fellow  low  down  in  the  school,  and  in  another  house. 
Sandham,  however,  was  a  handsome  daredevil  of  strong 
but  questionable  character,  and  it  suited  him  to  have  a 
leading  prcepostor  for  his  friend.  One  hesitates  to  add 
that  he  was  a  younger  son  of  a  rather  prominent  peer, 
lest  the  statement  be  taken  as  in  any  way  accounting  for 
Evan's  side  of  the  friendship.  It  is  only  the  thousandth 
boy,  however,  who  troubles  himself  to  think  twice  about 
another's  fellow's  people,  high  or  low.  Of  all  beings  boys 
are  in  this  respect  the  least  snobbish,  and  Evan  Devereux 
was  of  all  schoolboys  the  last  to  embody  an  exception  to 
that  or  any  other  general  rule.  Sandham  was  not  the 
only  fellow  whose  hereditary  quality  was  denoted  by  a 
"Mr."  in  the  list;  the  others  were  nobodies  in  the  school, 
and  neither  Evan  nor  anybody  else  made  up  to  them. 
But  to  the  aristocracy  of  athletics  he  could  bow  as  low  as 
his  neighbour,  and  his  friend  Sandham  was  an  athlete  of 
the  first  water.  Half-back  in  the  fifteen,  as  good  a  bat  as 
there  was  in  the  Eleven,  and  a  conjuror  at  extra  cover,  the 
gifted  youth  must  needs  signalise  his  friend's  Captaincy  of 
Games  by  adding  the  Athletic  Championship  to  his  bag  of 
honours.  Winner  of  the  Steeplechase,  Hurdles,  Hundred- 
yards..  Quarter-mile  and  Wide-jump,  not  only  was  Sand- 
ham Champion  but  the  rest  were  nowhere  in  the  table  of 
marks.  It  must  be  added  that  he  wore  his  halo  with  a 
rakish  indifference  which  lent  some  colour  to  the  report 
that  "Mr."  Sandham  had  been  removed  from  Eton  before 
old  Thrale  gave  him  another  chance. 

"He's  a  marvellous  athlete,   whatever  else  he  is," 


THE  EVE  OF  OFFICE  245 

said  Chips  to  Jan,  on  the  last  Sunday  of  the  Easter 
term. 

"  Fin  blowed  if  I  know  what  else  he  is,"  replied  Jan, 
"but  I  should  be  sorry  to  see  quite  so  much  of  him  if  I 
were  Evan." 

"Not  you,"  cried  Chips,  "if  you  were  Evan!  You'd 
jolly  well  see  all  you  could  of  anybody  at  the  top  of  the 
tree!'* 

"Look  here.  Chips,  dry  up!  Evan's  pretty  near  the 
top  himself." 

"Are  you  going  to  stick  him  in  the  Eleven?" 

"  If  he's  good  enough,  and  I  hope  he  will  be." 

"  Of  course  it's  expected  of  you." 

"Who  expects  it?" 

"  Sandham  for  one,  and  Devereux  himself  for  another. 
Didn't  you  see  how  they  stopped  to  make  up  to  you  when 
they  overtook  us  just  now?" 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean.  Evan's  a  friend  of 
mine,  and  of  course  I've  seen  a  lot  of  Sandham.  They 
only  asked  if  I  was  going  to  get  any  practice  in  the 
holidays." 

"They  took  good  care  to  let  you  know  they  were  going 
to  have  some.  So  Evan's  going  to  stay  with  Sandham's 
people,  is  he  ?  " 

"  It  was  Sandham  said  that." 

"And  they're  going  to  have  a  professor  down  from 
Lord's!" 

"  Well,  they  might  be  worse  employed." 

"They  might  so.  I  should  raUier  like  to  know  what 
they're  up  to  at  this  very  minute." 

The  scene  was  one  of  the  many  undulating  country 
roads  that  radiated  from  the  littie  town  like  tentacles. 
Chips  and  Jan  were  strolling  lazily  between  the  jewelled 
hedge-rows  of  early  April;   the  other  two  had  overtaken 


246  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

them  rather  suddenly,  walking  very  fast,  and  had  stopped, 
as  if  on  second  thoughts,  to  make  perfunctory  conversa- 
tion. Evan  had  turned  rather  red,  as  he  still  would  in  a 
manner  that  must  have  been  a  trial  to  him.  There  had 
followed  the  few  words  about  the  holidays  to  which  Chips 
had  alluded,  but  in  which  he  had  not  joined.  He  also 
had  his  old  faults  in  various  stages  of  preservation; 
touchiness  was  one  of  them,  jealousy  another.  But  his 
last  words  had  been  called  forth  by  nothing  more  or 
worse  than  a  fresh  sight  of  Evan  and  Sandham  on  the 
sky-line,  climbing  a  gate  into  a  field. 

"I  votes  we  go  some  other  way,"  said  Jan.  "I  don't 
like  spying  on  chaps,  even  when  it's  only  a  case  of  a 
cigarette." 

"No  more  do  I,"  his  friend  agreed,  thoughtfully. 
And  another  way  they  went.  But  the  conversation 
languished  between  them,  until  rather  suddenly  Carpenter 
ran  his  arm  through  Jan's. 

"Isn't  it  beastly  to  be  so  near  the  end  of  our  time. 
Tiger?    Only  one  more  term!" 

"It  is  a  bit,"  assented  Jan,  lukewarmly.  "I  know 
you  feel  it,  but  I  often  think  I'd  have  done  better  to 
have  left  a  year  ago." 

Chips  looked  round  at  him  as  they  walked. 

"And  you  Captain  of  Cricket!" 

"  That's  why,"  said  Jan,  in  the  old  grim  way. 

"But,  my  dear  chap,  it's  by  far  the  biggest  honour 
you  can  possibly  have  here!" 

"I  know  all  that,  Chipsy;  but  there's  a  good  deal 
more  in  it  than  honour  and  glory.  There's  any  amount  to 
do.  You're  responsible  for  all  sorts  of  things.  Bruce 
used  to  tell  me  last  year.  It  isn't  only  writing  out  the 
order,  nor  yet  changing  your  bowling  and  altering  the 
field." 


THE  EVE  OF  OFFICE  247 

"No;  you've  first  got  to  catch  your  Eleven." 

"And  not  only  that,  but  all  the  other  elevens  on  the 
Upper,  and  captains  for  both  the  other  grounds.  You're 
responsible  for  all  the  lot,  and  you've  got  to  make  up 
your  mind  that  you  can't  please  everybody." 

Chips  said  nothing.  Some  keen  praepostor  was  invari- 
ably made  Captain  of  the  Middle.  Chips  would  have 
loved  the  unexalted  post;  but  as  he  had  never  been  in 
any  eleven  at  all,  even  that  distinction  would  be  denied 
him  by  a  rigid  adherence  to  tradition.  And  evidently 
Jan  had  no  intention  of  favouring  his  friends,  if  indeed 
this  particular  idea  had  crossed  his  mind. 

"One  ought  to  know  every  fellow  in  the  school  by 
sight,"  he  continued.  "But  I  don't  know  half  as  many 
as  I  did.  Do  you  remember  how  you  were  always  find- 
ing out  fellows'  names,  Chips,  our  first  year  or  so?  You 
didn't  rest  till  you  could  put  a  name  to  everybody  above 
us  in  the  school;  but  I  doubt  we  neither  of  us  take  much 
stock  of  the  crowd  below." 

"  I  find  the  house  takes  me  all  my  time,  and  you  must 
feel  the  same  way  about  the  Eleven,  only  much  more  so. 
By  Jove,  but  I'd  give  all  I'm  ever  likely  to  have  on  earth 
to  change  places  with  you!" 

"  And  I'm  not  sure  that  I  wouldn't  change  places  with 
you.  Somehow  things  always  look  different  when  you 
really  get  anywhere,"  sighed  Jan,  discovering  an  eternal 
truth  for  himself. 

"But  to  captain  the  Eleven!" 

"To  make  a  good  captain!    That's  the  thing." 

"But  you  will,  Jan;  look  at  your  bowling." 

"It's  not  everything.  You've  got  to  drive  your  team; 
it's  no  good  only  putting  your  own  shoulder  to  the  wheel. 
And  they  may  be  a  diflScult  team  to  drive." 

"Sandham  may.    And  if  Devereux " 


248  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Sandham's  not  the  only  one,"  interrupted  Jan,  who 
was  not  talking  gloomily,  but  only  frankly  as  he  felt. 
"There's  Goose  and  Ibbotson — who're  in  already — ^and 
Chilton  who's  bound  to  get  in.  A  regular  gang  of  them, 
and  I'm  not  in  it,  and  never  was. " 

"But  you're  in  another  class!"  argued  Carpenter, 
forgetting  himself  entirely  in  that  affectionate  concern 
for  a  friend  which  was  his  finest  point.  "You're  one  of 
the  very  best  bowlers  there  ever  was  in  the  school,  Jan. " 

"I  may  have  been.  I'm  not  now.  But  I  might  be 
again  if  I  could  get  that  leg-break." 

"You  shall  practise  it  every  day  on  our  lawn  when 
you  come  to  us  these  holidays. " 

"  Thanks,  old  chap.  Everybody  says  it's  what  I  want. 
That  uncle  of  mine  said  so  the  very  first  match  we  played 
together,  when  he  was  home  again  last  year." 

"  Well,  he  ought  to  know." 

And  the  conversation  declined  to  a  highly  technical 
discussion  in  which  Chips  Carpenter,  the  rather  puny 
praepostor  who  could  never  get  into  any  eleven,  held  his 
own  and  more;  for  the  strange  fact  was  that  he  still 
knew  more  about  cricket  than  the  captain  of  the  school 
team.  At  heart,  indeed,  he  was  the  more  complete 
cricketer  of  the  two;  for  Jan  was  just  a  natural  left-hand 
bowler,  only  too  well  aware  of  his  limitations,  and  in 
some  danger  of  losing  his  gift  through  the  laborious 
cultivation  of  quite  another  knack  which  did  not  happen 
to  be  his  by  nature. 

The  trouble  had  begun  about  the  time  oi  the  last  Old 
Boys'  Match,  when  Jan  had  heard  more  than  enough  of 
the  break  which  was  not  then  at  his  command;  egged  on 
by  Captain  Ambrose  in  the  summer  holidays,  he  had 
tried  it  with  some  success  in  village  cricket,  and  had 
thought  about  it  all  the  winter.    Now  especially  it  was 


THE  EVE  OF  OFFICE  249 

the  question  uppermost  in  his  mind.  Was  he  going 
to  make  the  ball  break  both  ways  this  season?  The 
point  mattered  more  than  the  constitution  of  the  Eleven, 
Evan's  inclusion  in  it  (much  as  that  was  to  be  desired), 
or  the  personal  relations  of  the  various  members.  If  only 
Jan  himself  could  bowl  better  than  ever,  or  even  up  to 
his  first  year's  form,  then  he  would  carry  the  whole  side 
to  victory  on  his  shoulders. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

OUT  OF  FORM 

There  was  one  great  loss  which  the  school  and  Jan  had 
suffered  since  the  previous  summer.  Tempted  by  the 
prospect  of  a  free  hand,  unfettered  by  tradition,  and  really 
very  lucky  in  his  selection  for  the  post,  Dudley  Relton 
had  accepted  the  head-mastership  of  a  Church  of  England 
Grammar  School  in  Victoria.  Already  he  was  out  there, 
doubtless  at  work  on  the  raw  material  of  future  Australia 
teams,  while  Jan  was  left  sighing  for  the  rather  masterful 
support  which  the  last  two  captains  had  been  apt  a  little 
to  resent.  Relton  was  not  replaced  by  another  of  his 
still  rare  kind,  but  by  the  experienced  captain  of  a  purely 
professional  county  team — a.  fine  player  and  a  steady  man 
— but  not  an  inspired  teacher  of  the  game.  To  coach 
anybody  in  anything,  it  is  obviously  better  to  know  a 
little  and  to  be  able  to  impart  it,  than  to  know  everything 
but  the  art  of  transmitting  your  knowledge.  George 
Grim  wood  had  plenty  of  patience,  but  expended  too  much 
in  a  vain  attempt  to  inculcate  certain  strokes  of  genius 
which  he  himself  made  by  light  of  nature.  He  flew  a  bit 
too  high  for  his  young  beginners,  and  he  naturally  encour- 
aged Jan  to  persevere  with  his  leg-breaks. 

Not  a  day  of  that  term  but  the  Captain  of  Cricket 
sighed  for  Dudley  Relton,  with  his  confident  counsels  and 
his  uncanny  knowledge  of  the  game.     Especially  was  this 

250 


OUT  OF  FORM  251 

the  case  in  the  early  part  of  May,  when  trial  matches  had 
to  be  arranged  without  the  assistance  of  a  single  outsider 
who  knew  anything  about  anybody's  previous  form.  Jan 
found  that  he  knew  really  very  little  about  the  new  men 
himself;  and  Grimwood's  idea  of  a  trial  match  was  that 
it  was  "matterless"  who  played  for  the  Eleven  and  who 
for  the  Rest  (with  Grimwood).  The  new  captain  no 
doubt  took  his  duties  too  seriously  from  the  first,  but  he 
had  looked  to  the  new  professional  for  more  assistance 
outside  his  net.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  under  a  cross- 
fire of  suggestions  from  the  other  fellows  already  in  the 
team — of  whom  there  were  four.  Now,  five  old  choices 
make  a  fine  backbone  to  any  school  eleven;  but  Jan 
could  not  always  resist  the  thought  that  his  task  would 
have  been  lighter  with  only  one  or  two  in  a  position  to 
offer  him  advice,  especially  as  house  feeling  ran  rather 
high  in  the  school. 

Thus  old  Goose,  who  as  Captain  of  Football  deserved 
his  surname  but  little  in  public  opinion,  though  very 
thoroughly  in  that  of  the  masters,  would  have  filled  half 
the  vacant  places  from  his  own  house;  and  his  friend 
Ibbotson,  a  steady  bat  but  an  unsteady  youth,  had  other 
axes  to  grind.  Tom  Buckley,  a  dull  good  fellow  who 
ought  to  have  been  second  to  Jan  in  authority,  invariably 
advocated  the  last  view  confided  to  him.  But  what 
annoyed  Jan  most  was  the  way  in  which  Sandham  ran 
Evan  as  his  candidate,  from  the  very  first  day  of  the  term, 
pressing  his  claims  as  though  other  people  were  bent  on 
disregarding  them. 

"I  saw  Evan  play  before  you  did,  Sandham,"  said 
Jan,  bluntly;  "and  there's  nobody  keener  than  me  to  see 
him  come  off." 

"But  you  didn't  see  him  play  in  the  holidays.  The 
two  bowlers  we  had  down  from  Lord's  thought  no  end  of 


252  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

him.  I  don't  think  you  know  what  a  fine  bat  Evan 
is." 

"Well,  I'm  only  too  ready  to  learn.  He's  got  the 
term  before  him,  like  all  the  lot  of  us." 

"Yes,  but  he's  the  sort  to  put  in  early,  Rutter;  you 
take  my  word  for  it.  He  has  more  nerves  in  his  little 
finger  than  you  and  I  in  our  whole  bodies. " 

"I  know  him,"  said  Jan,  rather  tickled  at  having 
Evan  of  all  people  expounded  to  him. 

"Then  you  must  know  that  he's  not  the  fellow  to  do 
himself  justice  till  he  gets  his  colours. " 

"  Well,  I  can't  give  him  them  till  he  does,  can  I  ?  " 

"I  don't  know.  You  might  if  you'd  seen  him  playing 
those  professors.  And  then  you're  a  friend  of  his,  aren't 
you,  Rutter?" 

"Well,  I  can't  give  him  his  colours  for  that!" 

"Nobody  said  you  could;  but  you  might  give  him  a 
chance,"  returned  Sandham,  sharply. 

"I  might,"  Jan  agreed,  "even  without  you  telling 
me,    Sandham ! " 

And  they  parted  company  with  mutual  displeasure; 
for  Jan  resented  the  suggestion  that  he  was  not  going  to 
give  his  own  friend  a  fair  chance,  even  more  than  the 
strong  hint  to  favour  him  as  such;  and  Sandham,  who 
had  expected  a  rough  dog  like  Rutter  to  be  rather  flat- 
tered by  his  confidential  advice,  went  about  warning 
the  others  that  they  had  to  deal  with  a  Jack-in-oflSce  who 
wouldn't  listen  to  a  word  from  any  of  them. 

Nevertheless  Evan  played  in  the  first  two  matches, 
made  5,  0  and  1,  and  was  not  given  a  place  against  the 
M.C.C.  Jan  perhaps  unwisely  sent  him  a  note  of  very 
real  regret,  which  Evan  acknowledged  with  a  sneer  when 
they  met  on  the  Upper. 

Jan  had  even  said  in  his  note,  in  a  purple  patch  of 


OUT  OF  FORM  253 

deplorable  iijiprucience,  that  on  his  present  form  he  knew 
he  ought  not  to  be  playing  himself,  only  as  captain  he 
supposed  it  was  his  duty  to  do  his  best.  He  could  not 
very  well  kick  himself  out,  but  if  he  could  he  would  have 
given  Evan  his  place  that  day. 

Indeed,  he  had  not  proved  worth  his  place  in  either  of 
the  first  two  matches.  Scores  were  not  expected  of  him, 
though  he  no  longer  went  in  absolutely  last;  but  his 
bowling  had  given  away  any  number  of  runs,  while  ac- 
counting for  hardly  any  wickets  at  all.  Jan  had  lost 
his  bowling.  That  was  the  simple  truth  of  the  matter. 
He  had  squandered  his  natural  gifts  of  length  and  spin  in 
the  sedulous  cultivation  of  a  ball  which  Nature  had  never 
intended  him  to  bowl.  In  striving  to  acquire  a  new  and 
conscious  subtlety,  his  hand  had  lost  its  original  and 
innate  cunning.  It  is  a  phase  in  the  development  of 
every  artist,  but  it  had  come  upon  Jan  at  a  most  inoppor- 
tune stage  of  his  career.  Moreover  it  had  come  with 
a  gust  of  unpopularity  in  itself  enough  to  chill  the  ar- 
dour of  a  more  enthusiastic  cricketer  than  Jan  Rut- 
ter. 

Jan  had  never  professed  a  really  disinterested  en- 
thusiasm for  the  game.  He  had  been  a  match-winning 
bowler,  who  had  thoroughly  enjoyed  winning  matches, 
especially  when  they  looked  as  bad  as  lost;  he  could 
never  have  nursed  a  hopeless  passion  for  the  game,  like 
poor  old  futile  Chips  Carpenter.  But  he  still  had  the 
faculty  of  meeting  his  troubles  with  a  glow  rather  than  a 
shiver;  and  he  bowled  like  a  lonely  demon  against  the 
M.C.C.  It  was  a  performance  not  to  be  named  in  the 
same  breath  as  his  olden  deeds,  but  he  did  get  wickets, 
and  all  of  them  with  the  old  ball  that  whipped  off  the 
pitch  with  his  arm.  The  new  ball  betrayed  itself  by  an 
unconscious  change  of  action — pitched  anywhere — and 


254  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

went  for  four  nearly  every  time.  Nevertheless,  in  the 
obstinacy  of  that  glowing  heart  of  his,  Jan  still  bowled 
the  new  ball  once  or  twice  an  over.  And  the  school  were 
beaten  by  the  M.C.C. 

There  was,  however,  one  continual  excuse  for  a  bowler 
of  this  tj^e  that  term.  It  was  no  summer;  the  easy  wet 
wicket  seldom  dried  into  a  really  difficult  one.  When  it 
did,  that  was  not  the  wicket  on  which  Jan  was  most 
dangerous;  and  for  all  his  erudition  in  the  matter.  Chips 
was  quite  beside  the  great  mark  made  aforetime  by  his 
friend,  when  he  sang  of  the  game  for  almost  the  last  time 
in  the  Mag. — 

"Break,  break,  break. 

On  a  dead  slow  pitch,  O  Ball! 
And  I  would  that  the  field  would  butter 
The  catch  that's  the  end  of  all! 

"And  the  beastly  balls  come  in " 

But  the  trouble  was  that  Jan's  came  in  so  slowly  on 
the  juicy  wickets  that  a  strong  back-player  had  leisure  to 
put  them  where  he  liked. 

Some  matches  were  abandoned  without  a  ball  being 
bowled;  but  towards  Founder's  Day  there  was  some  im- 
provement, and  to  insult  the  injured  cricketer  there  had 
been  several  fine  Sundays  before  that.  On  one  of  these, 
the  last  of  a  few  dry  days  in  early  June,  Chips  and  Jan 
were  out  for  another  walk  together,  in  the  direction  of 
Yardley  Wood. 

It  was  the  road  on  which  Devereux  and  Sandham  had 
overhauled  them  before  the  Easter  holidays;  this  time 
they  pursued  it  to  a  pleasant  upland  lane  where  they  leant 
against  some  posts  and  rails,  and  looked  down  across  a 
couple  of  great  sloping  meadows  to  the  famous  covert 
packed  into  the  valley  with  more  fields  rising  beyond. 


OUT  OF  FORM  255 

The  nearest  meadow  was  bright  emerald  after  so  much 
rain.  The  next  one  had  already  a  glint  of  gold  in  the 
middle  distance.  But  the  fields  that  rose  again  beyond 
the  dense,  dark  wood,  over  a  mile  away,  were  neither 
green  nor  yellow,  but  smoky  blue. 

It  was  the  wood  itself,  within  half  that  distance, 
that  drew  and  held  the  boys'  attention.  It  might  have 
been  a  patch  of  dark  green  lichen  in  the  venerable  roof 
of  England,  and  the  further  fields  its  mossy  slates. 

"  It  looks  about  as  good  a  jungle  as  they  make, "  said 
Chips.  "I  should  go  down  and  practise  finding  my 
way  across  it,  if  I  was  thinking  of  going  out  to 
Australia. " 

Chips  looked  round  as  he  spoke.  But  Jan  confined 
his  attention  to  the  wood. 

"It'd  take  you  all  your  time,"  he  answered.  "It's 
more  like  a  bit  of  overgrown  cocoanut  matting  than 
anything  else. " 

Chips  liked  the  simile,  especially  as  a  sign  of  liveliness 
in  Jan;  but  it  dodged  the  subject  he  was  trying  to  in- 
troduce. The  fact  was  that  Jan's  future  was  just  now  a 
matter  of  anxiety  to  himself  and  his  friends.  There  had 
long  been  some  talk  of  his  going  to  Australia,  to  an  uncle 
who  had  settied  out  there,  whereas  he  himself  would  have 
given  anything  to  go  for  a  soldier  like  his  other  uncle. 
This  was  an  impracticable  dream;  but  Dudley  Relton, 
consulted  on  the  alternative,  had  written  back  to  say  that 
in  his  opinion  Australia  was  the  very  place  for  such 
as  Jan.  Heriot,  on  the  other  hand,  had  quite  other  ideas; 
and  Jan  was  too  divided  in  his  own  mind,  and  too  sick  of 
the  whole  question,  to  wish  to  discuss  it  for  the  hundredth 
time  with  such  a  talker  as  old  Chips, 

"Just  about  room  for  the  foxes,"  he  went  on  about 
the  covert,  "and  that's  all." 


256  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Is  it,  though  I"  cried  Carpenter. 

"Well,  I'm  blowed,"  muttered  Jan. 

An  arresting  figure  had  emerged  from  one  of  the  sides 
for  which  Yardley  Wood  was  celebrated.  At  least  Jan 
pointed  out  a  white  mark  in  the  dense  woodland  wall,  and 
Chips  could  believe  it  was  a  gate,  as  he  screwed  up  his  eyes 
to  sharpen  their  vision  of  the  man  advancing  into  the 
lower  meadow.  All  he  could  make  out  was  a  purple  face, 
a  staggering  gait,  and  a  pair  of  wildly  waving  arms. 

"  What's  up,  do  you  suppose?"  asked  Chips,  excitedly. 

"  I'm  just  waiting  to  see. " 

The  unsteady  figure  was  signalling  and  gesticulating 
with  increasing  vivacity.  The  dark  edge  of  the  wood 
threw  out  the  faded  brown  of  his  corduroys,  the  incredible 
plum-colour  of  his  complexion.  Signals  were  never  flown 
against  better  background. 

"Something  must  have  happened  I"  exclaimed  Chips. 
"  Hadn't  we  better  go  and  see  what  it  is  ?  " 

"Not  quite.    Don't  you  see  who  it  is?" 

Chips  screwed  his  eyes  into  slits  behind  his  glasses. 

"Is  it  old  Mulberry?" 

"  Did  you  evei  see  another  face  that  colour  ?  " 

"  You're  right.  But  what  does  he  want  with  us  ?  Look 
at  him  beckoning!  Can  you  hear  what  he's  shouting 
out?" 

A  hoarse  voice^had  reached  them,  roaring. 

"No,  and  I  don't  want  to;  he's  as  drunk  as  a  fool, 
as  usual." 

"I'm  not  so  sure,  Jan.    I  believe  something's  up." 

"Well,  we'll  soon  see.  I'm  not  sure  but  what  you're 
right  after  all." 

Mulberry  was  nearing  the  nearer  meadow,  still  wav- 
ing and  ranting  as  he  came.  Chips  said  he  knew  he  was 
right,  and  it  was  a  shame  not  to  meet  the  fellow  half- 


OUT  OF  FORM  257 

way;  there  might  have  been  some  accident  in  the  wood. 
Chips  had  actually  mounted  the  lowest  of  the  rails  against 
which  they  had  been  leaning,  and  so  far  Jan  had  made  no 
further  protest,  when  the  drunkard  halted  in  the  golden 
meadow,  snatched  off  his  battered  hat,  and  bowed  so  low 
that  he  nearly  fell  over  on  his  infamous  nose.  Then  he 
turned  his  back  on  them,  and  retreated  rapidly  to  the 
wood,  with  only  an  occasional  stumble  in  his  hurried 
stride. 

"Come  on,"  said  Jan  with  a  swing  of  the  shoulder. 
"  I  never  could  bear  the  sight  of  that  brute.  He's  spoilt 
the  view. " 

In  a  minute  the  boys  were  out  of  the  green  lane,  and 
back  upon  the  hilly  road,  one  in  the  grip  of  a  double 
memory,  the  other  puzzling  over  what  had  just  occurred. 

"  I  can't  make  out  what  he  meant  by  it,  can  you,  Jan  ? 
It  was  as  though  he  thought  he  knew  us,  and  then  found 
he  didn't." 

Jan  came  back  to  the  present  to  consider  this  explana- 
tion. He  not  only  agreed  with  it,  but  he  carried  it  a  step 
further  on  his  own  account. 

"You've  hit  it!  He  took  us  for  two  other  fellows  in 
the  school." 

"  In  the  school  ?     I  hadn't  thought  of  that. " 

"Who  else  about  here  wears  a  topper  on  Sundays, 
except  you  Follies  ?  *  Besides,  he  came  near  enough  to 
see  my  school  cap. " 

"  But  what  fellows  in  the  school  would  have  anything 
to  do  with  a  creature  like  that  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Jan.     "We're  not  all  nobility 
and  gentry;  there's  some  might  get  him  to  do  some  dirty 
work  or  other  for  them.    It  might  be  a  bet,  or  it  might  be 
a  bit  of  poaching,  for  all  you  know." 
*  Prsepostors. 


258  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"That  doesn't  sound  like  a  praepostor,"  said  Chips, 
speaking  up  for  the  Upper  Sixth  like  a  man  after  old 
Thrale's  heart. 

"  You  never  know, "  said  Jan. 

The  discussion  was  not  prolonged.  It  was  interrupted, 
first  by  a  rising  duet  of  invisible  steps,  and  then  by  the 
apparition  of  Evan  Devereux  and  his  friend  Sandham 
hurrying  up  the  hill  with  glistening  faces. 

"Talk  of  the  nobility  and  gentry!"  said  Chips,  when 
the  pair  had  passed  with  a  greeting  too  curt  to  invite  a 
stoppage.  But  Jan's  chance  phrase  was  not  the  only 
coincidence.  The  encounter  had  occurred  at  the  very 
corner  where  the  same  four  fellows  had  met  by  similar 
accident  on  the  last  Sunday  of  last  term.  Moreover 
Evan,  like  Chips,  was  wearing  the  praepostor's  Sunday  hat, 
while  Sandham  and  Jan  were  in  their  ordinary  school  caps. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  OLD  boys'  MATCH 

Founder's  Day  was  mercifully  fine.  A  hot  sun  lit  the 
usual  scene  outside  the  colonnade,  where  the  Old  Boys 
assembled  before  the  special  service  with  which  the  day 
began,  and  greeted  each  other  to  the  merry  measure  of  the 
chapel  bells.  Most  of  the  hardy  annual  faces  were  early 
on  the  spot,  with  here  and  there  a  bronzed  one  not  to  be 
seen  every  year,  but  a  good  sprinkling  as  smooth  as  the 
other  day  when  they  left  the  school.  These  were  the 
men  of  fashion,  coming  down  at  last  in  any  clothes  they 
liked;  among  them  Bruce,  last  year's  captain,  and 
Stratten  his  wicket-keeper,  who  was  also  a  friend  of 
Jan's. 

Under  the  straw  hats  with  the  famous  ribbons  were 
Swallow  and  Wilman,  who  never  looked  a  day  older,  and 
the  great  Charles  Cave  who  did.  It  was  his  first  appear- 
ance as  an  Old  Boy,  and  perhaps  only  due  to  the  fact 
that  his  young  brother  was  playing  for  the  school.  Charles 
Cave  wore  a  Zingari  ribbon  and  a  Quidnunc  tie,  but 
there  was  every  hope  of  seeing  the  Cambridge  sash  round 
his  lithe  waist  later.  His  tawny  hair  seemed  to  have 
lost  a  Uttle  of  its  lustre,  and  he  looked  down  his  aristocratic 
nose  at  oral  reports  of  the  Eleven  and  of  the  captain's 
bowling.  But  fancy  that  young  Rutter  being  in  at  all, 
let  alone  captain!    Fine  bowler  his  first  year?    So  were 

259 


260  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

lots  of  them,  but  how  many  lasted  ?  It  was  the  old  story, 
and  Charles  Cave  looked  the  Methusaleh  of  Cricket  as 
he  shook  that  handsome  head  of  his. 

But  the  captain's  bowling  was  not  the  worst;  they  did 
say  his  actual  captaincy  was  just  as  bad,  and  that  he  was 
frightfully  "barred"  by  the  team.  Of  course  he  never 
had  been  quite  the  man  for  the  job,  whatever  young 
Stratten  chose  to  say.  Stratten  would  stick  up  for  any- 
body, especially  of  his  own  house;  he  would  soon  see 
for  himself.  And  what  about  these  measles?  A  regular 
outbreak,  apparently,  within  the  last  week;  fresh  cases 
every  day;  among  others,  the  best  bat  in  the  school  I 
That  young  Sandham,  no  less.  Hard  luck?  Scarcely 
worth  playing  the  match,  with  such  a  jolly  good  lot  of 
Old  Boys  down.  ...  So  the  heads  and  tongues  wagged 
together,  and  with  them  those  happy  chapel  bells,  until 
one  was  left  ringing  more  sedately  by  itself,  and  the  Old 
Boys  filed  in  and  up  to  their  prominent  places  at  the  top 
of  the  right-hand  aisle. 

Evan  Devereux,  always  a  musical  member  of  a  very 
musical  school,  sat  in  the  choir  in  full  view  of  the  young 
men  of  all  ages.  But  he  did  not  look  twice  at  them; 
he  might  not  have  known  that  they  were  there.  Yet 
it  was  not  the  obviously  assumed  indiflFerence  of  one 
only  too  conscious  that  they  were  there,  and  who  they 
all  were,  and  which  of  them  were  going  to  play  in  the 
match.  Evan  might  have  felt  that  he  ought  to  have 
been  playing  against  them,  that  only  a  brute  with  a  spite 
against  him  would  have  left  him  out;  but  he  did  not 
look  as  though  he  were  thinking  of  that  now.  He  did 
not  look  bitter  or  contemptuous;  he  did  look  worried 
and  distrait.  Any  one,  sufficiently  interested  in  his  flushed 
face  and  sharp  yet  sensitive  features,  might  have  observed 
that  he  seldom  turned  over  a  leaf,  or  remembered  to  open  ' 


THE  OLD  BOYS'  MATCH  261 

his  compressed  mouth ;  from  it  alone  they  might  have  seen 
that  he  was  miserable,  but  they  could  not  possibly  have 
guessed  why. 

Neither  did  Jan  when  he  chased  Evan  to  his  study 
immediately  after  chapel. 

"It's  all  right,  Evan!  You've  got  to  play,  if  you 
don't  mind!" 

"Who  says  so?"  cried  Evan,  swinging  round. 

Of  course  it  was  not  his  old  study,  but  it  was  just  as 
dark  inside,  like  all  the  Lodge  studies  leading  straight  out 
into  the  quad;  and  Jan  very  naturally  misconstrued  the 
angry  tone,  missing  altogether  its  note  of  alarm. 

"I  do,  of  course.  I  was  awfully  sorry  ever  to  leave 
you  out,  but  what  else  was  I  to  do?  Thank  goodness 
you've  got  your  chance  again,  and  I  only  hope  you'll 
make  a  century!" 

Jan  was  keen  to  the  point  of  fervour;  no  ill-will  of 
any  sort  or  kind,  not  even  the  reflex  resentment  of  an 
unpopular  character,  seemed  to  survive  in  his  mind.  His 
delight  on  his  friend's  behalf  seemed  almost  to  have 
restored  his  confidence  in  himself. 

"Then  I'll  see  if  I  can't  bowl  a  bit,"  he  added,  "and 
between  us  we'll  make  Charles  Cave  &  Co.  sit  up!" 

"I — I  don't  think  I'm  awfully  keen  on  playing, 
thank  you,"  said  Evan,  in  a  wavering  voice  of  would-be 
stiffness. 

"You  are!" 

"  I'm  not,  really,  thanks  all  the  same. " 

"But  you  can't  refuse  to  play  for  the  school,  just 
because  I  simply  was  obliged " 

"It  isn't  that!"  snapped  Evan  from  his  heart.  It 
was  too  late  to  recall  it.  He  did  not  try.  He  stood  for 
some  time  without  adding  a  syllable,  and  then — "I 
thought  I  wasn't  even  twelfth  man?"  he  sneered. 


262                    FATHERS  OF  MEN 
"  Well,  as  a  matter  of  fact " 


Jan  had  not  the  heart  to  state  the  fact  outright. 

"I  thought  Norgate  had  got  Sandham's  place?" 

"  Well,  so  he  had.  I  couldn't  help  it,  Evan  I  I  really 
couldn't.  But  now  Norgate  has  got  measles,  too,  and 
you've  simply  got  to  come  in  instead.  You  will,  Evan! 
Of  course  you  will;  and  I'll  bowl  twice  as  well  for  having 
you  on  the  side.  I  simply  hated  leaving  you  out.  But 
there's  life  in  the  old  dog  yet,  and  I'll  let  'em  know  it, 
and  so  will  you ! " 

He  penetrated  deeper  into  the  dusky  den;  his  hand  flew 
out  spasmodically.  There  was  not  another  living  being 
to  whom  he  would  have  made  so  demonstrative  an  advance,* 
but  he  had  just  described  himself  more  aptly  than  he 
knew.  Evan  always  awakened  the  faithful  old  hound 
in  Jan,  as  Jerry  Thrale  had  stirred  the  lion  in  him,  Haigh 
the  mule,  and  sane  Bob  Heriot  the  mere  man.  So  we  all 
hit  each  other  in  different  places.  But  it  was  only  Evan 
who  had  found  Jan's  softest  spot,  and  therefore  only 
Evan  who  could  hurt  him  as  he  did  without  delay. 

"Oh,  all  right.  I'll  play.  Anything  to  oblige,  I'm 
sure!  But  there's  nothing  to  shake  hands  about,  is 
there?" 

So  history  repeated  and  exaggerated  itself.  But 
it  was  a  long  time  before  Jan  thought  of  that.  And  then 
he  was  not  angry  with  himself,  as  he  had  been  four  years 
before;  he  was  far  too  hurt  to  be  angry  with  anybody  at 
all.  And  in  that  old  dog,  for  one,  there  was  very  little 
life  that  day. 

He  went  through  the  preliminary  forms  of  oflRce,  which 
generally  caused  him  visible  embarrassment,  with  a  casual 
unconcern  even  less  to  be  admired;  but  it  was  almost 
the  fact  that  Jan  only  realised  he  had  lost  the  toss  when 
he  found  himself  as  mechanically  leading  his  men  into  the 


THE  OLD  BOYS'  MATCH  263 

field.  He  had  been  thinking  of  Evan  all  that  time,  but 
now  he  took  himself  in  hand,  set  his  field  and  opened 
the  bowling  himself  in  a  fit  of  desperation.  It  was  no 
good;  he  had  lost  the  art.  That  fatal  new  ball  of  his 
was  an  expensive  present  to  such  batsmen  as  Cave  and 
Wilman;  and  the  soft  green  wicket  was  still  too  slow 
for  the  one  that  came  with  his  arm;  they  could  step 
back  to  it,  and  place  it  for  a  single  every  time.  After 
three  overs  Jan  took  himself  off,  and  watched  the  rest  of 
the  innings  from  various  positions  in  the  field. 

It  lasted  well  into  the  afternoon,  when  the  pitch  be- 
came difficult  and  one  of  the  change  bowlers  took  ad- 
vantage of  it,  subsequently  receiving  his  colours  for  a 
very  creditable  performance.  It  was  the  younger  Cave, 
and  he  had  secured  the  last  five  wickets  for  under  thirty 
runs,  apart  from  a  couple  in  the  morning.  His  gifted 
brother  had  taken  just  enough  trouble  to  contribute 
an  elegant  29  out  of  47  for  the  first  wicket;  the  cele- 
brated Swallow  had  batted  up  to  his  great  reputation 
for  three-quarters  of  an  hour;  and  Swiller  Wihnan, 
who  played  serious  cricket  with  a  misleading  chuckle, 
would  certainly  have  achieved  his  usual  century  but  for 
the  collapse  of  the  Old  Boys'  rearguard.  He  carried  his 
bat  through  the  innings  for  83  out  of  212,  but  was  good 
enough  to  express  indebtedness  to  Jan,  to  whom  he  had 
been  delightful  all  day. 

"  If  you'd  gone  on  again  after  lunch, "  said  Wilman,  "  I 
believe  you'd  have  made  much  shorter  work  of  us.  I 
know  I  was  jolly  glad  you  didn't — but  you  shouldn't  take 
a  bad  streak  too  seriously,  Rutter.  It'll  all  come  back 
before  you  know  where  you  are. " 

Jan  shook  a  hopeless  head,  but  he  was  grateful  for 
the  other's  friendliness.  It  had  made  three  or  four  hours 
in  the  field  pass  quicker  than  in  previous  matches;  it  had 


264  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

even  affected  the  manner  of  the  rest  of  the  Eleven  towards 
him — or  Jan  thought  it  had — because  the  Swiller  was 
undoubtedly  the  most  popular  personality,  man  or  boy, 
upon  the  ground.  Jan  was  none  the  less  thankful  to 
write  out  the  order  of  going  in  and  then  to  retire  into  a 
corner  of  the  pavilion  for  the  rest  of  the  afternoon. 

That,  however,  was  not  ordained  by  the  Fates  who  had 
turned  a  slow  wicket  into  a  sticky  one,  after  robbing  the 
school  of  its  best  batsman.  Two  wickets  were  down  be- 
fore double  figures  appeared  on  the  board,  and  four  for 
under  50.  Then  came  something  of  a  stand,  in  which  the 
younger  Cave,  who  had  his  share  of  the  family  insolence, 
seized  the  opportunity  of  treating  his  big  brother's  bowling 
with  ostentatious  disrespect.  It  was  not,  however, 
Charles  Cave  who  had  been  taking  the  wickets,  though 
his  graceful  action  and  his  excellent  length  had  been 
admired  as  much  as  ever.  It  was  A.  G.  Swallow,  the 
finest  bowler  the  school  etc. — until  he  became  her  most 
brilliant  bat.  The  wicket  was  just  adapted  for  a  taste 
of  his  earlier  quality;  for  over  an  hour  he  had  the  boys 
at  his  mercy,  and  perhaps  might  have  done  even  greater 
execution  than  he  did  in  that  time.  Then,  however, 
a  passing  shower  made  matters  easier;  and  when  Jan 
went  in,  seventh  wicket  down,  there  was  just  a  chance 
of  saving  the  follow-on,  with  91  on  the  board  and  half-an- 
hour  to  go.  Somehow  he  managed  to  survive  that  half- 
hour,  and  was  not  out  20  at  close  of  play,  when  the  score 
was  128  with  one  more  wicket  to  fall. 

At  the  Conversazione  in  the  evening,  he  found  that  he 
still  had  a  certain  number  of  friends,  who  not  only  made 
far  too  much  of  his  little  innings,  but  still  more  of  his 
election  to  the  Pilgrims  during  the  day.  The  Pilgrims 
C.C.  was  the  famous  and  exclusive  Old  Boys'  club  for 
which  few  indeed  were  chosen  out  of  each  year's  Eleven; 


THE  OLD  BOYS'  MATCH  265 

this  year  the  honour  was  reserved  for  Jan  and  the  absent 
Sandham;  and  with  his  new  colours,  worn  as  all  good 
Pilgrims  wear  them  on  these  occasions,  in  a  transverse 
band  between  the  evening  shirt  and  waistcoat,  the  fine 
awkward  fellow  was  a  salient  object  of  congratulations. 
Wilman  was  as  pointedly  nice  as  he  had  been  to  Jan  in 
the  field,  after  hearing  in  the  morning  of  his  unpopu- 
larity. Stratten  had  never  been  anything  else  to  anybody 
in  his  life,  but  he  could  not  have  been  nicer  about  this  if 
he  had  been  a  Pilgrim  himself  instead  of  feeling  rather 
sore  that  he  was  not  one.  A.  G.  Swallow  affected  to  see 
another  good  bowler  degenerating  into  a  batsman  in  ac- 
cordance with  his  own  bad  example.  And  the  other 
old  choices  of  the  present  team  very  properly  disguised 
their  disaffection  for  the  nonce. 

Only  Evan  Devereux,  who  again  had  failed  to  get 
into  double  figures,  said  nothing  at  all;  but  he  seemed  so 
lost  without  Sandham,  and  looked  so  wretched  when  he 
was  not  laughing  rather  loud,  that  Jan  was  not  at  first 
altogether  surprised  at  what  the  next  morning  brought 
forth. 


CHAPTER  XXin 

INTERLUDE  IN  A  STUDY 

It  was  in  Jan's  study,  now  of  course  one  of  the  large 
ones  up  the  steps  at  the  end  of  the  passage.  Chips  was 
in  there,  jawing  away  about  the  match,  and  the  prospect 
of  a  wicket  after  Jan's  own  heart  at  last.  Jan  sat  under 
him  with  the  tolerant  twinkle  which  was  quite  enough  to 
encourage  Chips  to  go  on  and  on.  It  was  tolerance  tinged 
with  real  affection,  especially  of  late  months;  and  never 
had  captain  of  a  house  a  more  invaluable  ally.  If  Chips 
raised  the  voice  of  command,  it  was  the  thews  and  sinews 
in  the  next  study  that  presented  themselves  to  the  in- 
subordinate mind  as  an  argument  against  revolt.  And 
old  Chips  was  man  enough  not  to  trade  on  this,  and  yet 
to  recognise  in  his  heart  the  true  source  of  nearly  all  the 
power  that  he  contrived  to  wield.  And  the  house  as  a 
whole  was  in  satisfactory  case,  because  the  two  big 
fellows  were  such  friends. 

Yet  Jan  seldom  dropped  into  Chips's  study,  and 
never  dragged  him  out  for  walks,  but  preferred  to  go 
alone  unless  Chips  took  the  initiative.  And  this  was  his 
delicacy,  not  a  cricketer's  superiority;  he  was  really 
afraid  of  seeming  to  fall  back  on  old  Chips  as  the  second 
string  to  Evan  that  he  really  was;  for,  of  course,  it  was 
just  in  these  days  that  Evan  had  taken  up  with  Sandham, 
after  having  honoured  Jan  off  and  on  since  his  first  year 

266 


INTERLUDE  IN  A  STUDY  267 

in  the  Eleven.  And  yet  Sandham  had  only  to  vanish  to 
the  Sanatorium,  for  Evan  to  come  round  to  Jan's  study 
directly  after  breakfast,  this  second  morning  of  the  Old 
Boys'  Match! 

Chips  retired  with  speaking  spectacles.  They  flashed 
out  plainly  that  Evan  had  no  shame;  but  the  funny 
thing  was  that  Evan  did  for  once  look  very  much  ashamed 
of  himself,  as  he  shut  the  door  with  a  mumbled  apology, 
and  so  turned  awkwardly  to  Jan.  He  had  reddened 
characteristically,  and  his  words  ran  together  in  a  laboured 
undertone  that  betrayed  both  effort  and  precaution. 

"I  say,  Jan,  do  you  think  there's  any  chance  of  our 
getting  them  out  again  this  morning?" 

"This  morning!"  Jan  grinned.  "Why,  they've  got 
to  get  us  out  first,  Evan.  And  they  may  make  us  fol- 
low on." 

"You'll  save  that,  won't  you?" 

"  I  hope  so,  but  you  never  know.  We  want  other  five 
runs.  Suppose  we  get  them,  it'd  be  a  job  to  run  through 
a  side  like  that  by  tea-time,  let  alone  lunch." 

"  You  did  it  two  years  ago." 

"Well,  that's  not  now.  But  what's  the  hurry,  Evan, 
if  we  can  save  the  match  ?" 

"Oh,  nothing  much;  only  I'm  afraid  I  shan't  be  able 
to  field  after  lunch." 

Evan  had  floundered  to  his  point  over  some  stiff  im- 
pediment. He  was  not  even  looking  at  Jan,  who  jumped 
out  of  his  chair  with  one  glance  at  Evan. 

"I  knew  it!" 

"What  did  you  know?" 

"You're  not  fit.  You  weren't  yesterday,  but  now  it's 
as  plain  as  a  pikestaff.  You're  in  for  these  infernal 
measles!" 

It  was  a  fair  deduction  from  a  face  so  flushed  and 


268  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

such  heavy  eyes:  again  Evan  dropped  them,  and  shook  a 
head  that  looked  heavier  still. 

"  Oh,  no,  I'm  not.  I  rather  wish  I  wasi"  he  muttered 
bitterly. 

"  Why  ?     What's  happened  ?     What's  wrong  ?  " 

Evan  flung  up  his  hangdog  head  in  sudden  des- 
peration. 

"I'm  in  a  frightful  scrape!" 

"Not  you,  Evan!" 

"lam,  though." 

"What  sort  of  scrape?" 

"I  don't  know  how  to  tell  you.  I  don't  know  what 
you'll  think." 

Jan  got  him  into  the  arm-chair,  and  took  the  other 
one  himself.  It  was  something  to  feel  that  Evan  cared 
what  he  thought. 

"Come!  I  don't  suppose  it's  anything  so  very  bad," 
said  he,  encouragingly. 

"  Bad  enough  to  prevent  me  from  playing  to-day,  I'm 
afraid." 

"  You  surely  don't  mean — that  anybody's  dead  ?  " 

"I  know  I  wish  I  was!" 

"It  isn't  that,  then?" 

"No;  but  I've  got  to  meet  somebody  at  two  o'clock. 
I  simply  must,"  declared  Evan,  with  an  air  of  dull  de- 
termination. 

"Some  of  your  people?"  asked  Jan,  and  supplied  the 
negative  himself  before  Evan  could  shake  his  head.  "I 
thought  not.    Then  do  you  mind  telling  me  who  it  is?" 

No  answer  from  Evan  but  averted  looks. 

"Well,  where  is  it  that  you've  got  to  meet  them." 

"Yardley  Wood." 

Jan  was  there  in  a  flash;  he  was  looking  over  the 
posts  and  rails  at  the  besotted  figure  waving  and  beckon- 


INTERLUDE  IN  A   STUDY  269 

ing  in  the  lower  meadow;  he  was  meeting  Sandham  and 
Evan,  hurrying  up  the  lane,  not  five  minutes  afterwards. 

"Is  it  old  Mulberry?"  asked  Jan,  with  absolute  cer- 
tainty that  it  was. 

"^Vhat  do  you  know  about  him?"  cried  Evan  sus- 
piciously. 

Jan  forced  a  conciliatory  grin.  "I  thought  every- 
body knew  something  about  Mulberry,"  he  said. 

"But  what  makes  you  think  of  him  the  moment  I 
mention  Yardley  Wood  ?  " 

"I  saw  him  come  out  the  other  Sunday." 

"I  daresay.  He  hides  there  half  the  summer.  But 
what's  that  got  to  do  with  me?" 

"  He  waved  to  us  by  mistake,  and  the  next  thing  was 
that  we  met  you  and  Sandham  coming  up  as  we  went 
down." 

"So  you  put  two  and  two  together  on  the  spot?" 

"  Well,  more  or  less  between  us." 

"Oh,  Carpenter,  of  course!  He  was  with  you,  wasn't 
he?" 

"Yes.  But  Chips  wouldn't  let  out  a  word,  any  more 
than  I  would,  Evan.  Not,"  added  Jan,  "that  there's 
anything  to  let  out  in  what  you've  told  me  as  yet.  .  .  Is 
there,  Evan?"  The  opportunity  afforded  by  a  pointed 
pause  had  not  been  taken.  "You  may  as  well  tell  me 
now  you've  got  so  far — but  don't  you  if  you've  thought 
better  of  it."  There  again  was  the  studious  delicacy  that 
was  growing  on  Jan,  that  had  always  been  in  his  blood. 

Evan  flung  up  his  head  once  more. 

"I'll  tell  you,  of  course.  I  came  to  tell  you.  It's 
nothing  awful  after  all.  There's  no  harm  in  it,  really; 
only  you  can  do  things  at  home,  quite  openly,  with  your 
people,  that  become  a  crime  if  you  do  them  here." 

"That's  true  enough,"  said  Jan  who  still  smoked  his 


270  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

pipe  in  Norfolk.  He  felt  relieved.  Evidently  it  was 
some  such  trifle  that  law-abiding  Evan  was  magnifying 
in  his  constitutional  horror  of  a  row. 

Jan  asked  outright  if  it  was  smoking,  if  Mulberry 
had  been  getting  them  cigars,  and  was  at  once  informed 
eagerly  that  he  had.  But  that  was  not  all;  the  old  tell- 
tale face  was  scarlet  with  the  rest.  And  out  it  all  came 
at  last. 

"  The  fact  is,  Sandham  and  I  have  had  a  bit  of  a  spree 
now  and  again  in  Yardley  Wood.  Champagne.  Not  a 
drop  too  much,  of  course,  or  you'd  have  heard  of  it,  and  so 
should  we.  No  more  harm  in  it  than  if  you  had  it  in  the 
holidays.  I  know  at  one  time  we  used  to  have  cham- 
pagne every  night  at  home.  Heaps  of  people  do;  they 
certainly  did  at  Lord  AUenborough's.  And  yet  it's  such 
a  frightful  crime  to  touch  it  here!" 

"  I  suppose  Mulberry  found  out  ?  " 

"No — he  got  it  for  us." 

"I  see.  And  I  suppose  you  paid  him  through  the 
nose?"  continued  Jan  at  length.  He  would  have  been 
the  first  to  take  Evan's  lenient  view  of  such  a  peccadillo,  if 
Evan  himself  had  said  less  in  extenuation.  But  just  as 
Chips  Carpenter  would  dry  Jan's  genial  currents  by  the 
overflow  of  his  own,  so  even  Evan  had  taken  the  excuses 
out  of  his  mouth,  and  left  it  shut  awhile. 

"That's  just  it,"  replied  Evan.  "We  have  paid  a 
wicked  price,  but  we  haven't  quite  squared  up,  and  now 
it's  all  falling  on  me." 

"  How  much  do  you  still  owe  him  ?  " 

"  Between  four  and  five  pounds." 

Jan  looked  grave;  any  such  sum  seemed  a  great  deal 
to  him. 

"Can't  you  raise  it  from  your  people?"  he  suggested. 

"No,  I  can't.    They're  all  abroad,  for  one  thing." 


INTERLUDE  IN  A  STUDY  271 

"What  about  Sandham  and  his  lot?" 

"I  can't  write  to  him,  you  see.  Anybody  might  get 
hold  of  it;  besides,  there's  no  time." 

"  He's  pressing  you,  is  he  ?  " 

"I've  got  to  pay  up  this  afternoon." 

"The  moment  Sandham's  out  of  the  way!" 

Jan's  eyes  had  brightened;  but  Evan  was  too  miserable 
to  meet  them  any  more;  he  could  speak  more  freely  with- 
out facing  his  confessor.  His  tone  was  frankly  injured, 
ingenuously  superior,  as  though  the  worst  of  all  was  having 
to  come  with  his  troubles  to  the  Hkes  of  Jan,  if  he  would 
kindly  bear  that  in  mind. 

Details  came  out  piecemeal,  each  with  its  covering 
excuse.  As  some  debaters  fight  every  inch  in  controversy, 
so  Evan  went  over  the  humiliating  ground  planting  flags 
of  defiant  self-justification.  The  business  had  begun  last 
term;  and  still  Sandham  had  been  easy  Champion;  that 
showed  how  harmless  the  whole  thing  had  been.  But 
when  Jan  asked  how  much  Mulberry  had  been  paid  al- 
ready, the  amount  amazed  him.  Evan  had  given  it  with- 
out thinking;  but  when  asked  whether  he  and  Sandham 
had  got  through  all  that  alone,  he  refused  to  answer, 
saying  that  was  their  business,  and  turning  again  very 
red.  At  any  rate  he  was  not  going  to  drag  in  anybody 
else,  he  declared  as  though  he  were  standing  up  to  old 
Thrale  himself,  and  by  way  of  suffering  the  extreme 
penalty  for  his  silence. 

Jan  saw  exactly  what  had  happened.  It  was  Sandham 
who  had  led  Evan  into  mischief;  but  that  was  the  last 
thing  of  all  that  Evan  could  be  expected  to  admit.  Be- 
tween them  these  two  might  have  led  others;  but  all 
that  mattered  to  Jan  was  the  old  story  of  the  strong  vil- 
lain and  the  weak-kneed  accomplice.  Of  course  it  was 
the  villain  who  escaped  the  consequences;  and  very  hard 


272  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

it  seemed  even  to  Jan.  Sandham  was  reported  to  have 
his  own  banking  account;  he  could  have  written  a  cheque 
for  four  or  five  pounds  without  feeling  it;  probably  he  had 
refused  to  do  so,  probably  the  whole  thing  was  a  dexterous 
attempt  to  blackmail  Evan  while  his  masterful  friend  was 
out  of  reach. 

Jan  asked  a  few  questions,  and  extracted  answers 
which  left  him  nodding  to  himself  with  rare  self-satis- 
faction. On  Evan  they  had  an  opposite  effect.  Unless  he 
went  with  the  money  to  the  wood,  before  three  o'clock,  the 
villainous  Mulberry  was  "coming  in  to  blab  the  whole 
thing  out  to  Jerry."  And  he  would  do  it,  too,  a  low  wretch 
like  that,  with  nothing  to  lose  by  it!  And  what  would 
that  mean  but  being  bunked  in  one's  last  term — but  break- 
ing one's  people's  hearts — Jan  knew  them — as  well  as 
one's  own  ? 

Evan's  voice  broke  as  it  was.  He  laid  his  forehead  on 
his  hand,  thus  hiding  and  yet  trying  to  save  his  face;  and 
Jan  could  not  help  a  thrill  of  joy  at  the  sight  of  Evan,  of 
all  people,  come  to  him,  of  all  others,  for  aid  in  such  a 
pass.  He  was  ashamed  of  feeling  as  he  did;  and  yet  it  was 
no  ignoble  sense  of  power,  much  less  of  poetic  justice 
or  revenge,  that  touched  and  fired  this  still  very  simple 
heart.  It  was  only  the  final  conviction  that  here  at  last 
was  his  chance  of  doing  something  for  Evan,  something 
to  win  a  new  place  in  his  regard,  and  to  efface  for  ever  the 
subtly  tenacious  memory  of  the  old  ignominous  footing 
between  them.  That  was  all  Jan  felt,  as  he  sat  and  looked, 
with  renewed  compassion,  yet  with  just  that  thrilling 
human  perception  of  his  own  great  ultimate  gain,  at  the 
bowed  head  and  abject  figure  of  him  whom  he  had  loved 
and  envied  all  his  days. 

"He  doesn't  happen  to  have  put  his  threat  into  black 
and  white,  I  suppose?" 


INTERLUDE  IN  A  STUDY  273 

Jan  felt  that  he  was  asking  a  stupid  question.  Of 
course  he  would  have  heard  of  anything  of  the  kind  before 
this.  He  did  not  realise  the  break  that  Evan's  vanity  was 
still  putting  on  Evan's  tongue.  But  when  a  dirty  Httle 
document  was  produced,  even  now  reluctantly,  and  found 
to  contain  that  very  word  "  blab, "  with  the  time,  place,  and 
exact  amount  stipulated,  Jan  soon  saw  why  it  had  not 
been  put  in  before.  It  referred  to  a  broken  appointment 
on  the  day  of  writing.  That  was  another  thing  Evan  had 
not  mentioned.  It  accounted  for  his  strange  unreadiness 
to  play  in  the  match,  as  well  as  for  the  threats  accompany- 
ing the  impudently  definite  demand. 

"This  is  what  he  asks,  eh?  So  this  would  settle 
him?" 

"There's  no  saying,"  replied  Evan,  doubtfully,  "t 
thought  we  had  settled,  more  or  less." 

"  More  or  less  is  no  good.  Have  you  nothing  to  show 
by  way  of  a  receipt?" 

"Sandham  may  have.  I  know  he  stumped  up  a  lot 
that  very  Sunday  you  saw  us. " 

"Then  what  did  you  think  of  doing,  if  you  did  get  out 
to  see  him  after  dinner  ?  " 

"Stave  him  off  till  the  holidays,  I  suppose." 

"You  didn't  mean  to  stump  up  any  more?" 

"  No,  I'm  hard  up,  that's  the  point. " 

"And  you'd  have  stayed  him  off  by  promising  him  a 
good  bit  more  if  he'd  wait?" 

"By  hook  or  crook!"  cried  Evan,  desperately.  "But 
unless  I  can  get  away  from  the  match,  I'm  done." 

Jan  put  on  an  air  of  sombre  mystery,  lightened  only 
by  the  crafty  twinkle  in  his  eyes.  Chips  would  have  read 
it  as  Jan's  first  step  to  the  rescue.  But  Evan  missed 
the  twinkle,  and  everything  else  except  the  explicit  state- 
ment: 


274  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"  You  can't  get  away,  Evan. " 

"  Then  it's  all  up  with  me  I" 

"Not  yet  a  bit." 

"  But  the  fellow  means  it! " 

"  Let  him  mean  it. " 

"If  I'm  not  there -" 

"Somebody  else  may  take  your  place." 

"  In  the  field  ?    My  dear  fellow " 

"No,  not  in  the  field,  Evan,  nor  yet  at  the  crease.  In 
Yardley  Wood!" 

Jan  allowed  himself  a  smile  at  last.  And  Chips 
could  not  have  been  quicker  than  Evan  to  see  his  mean- 
ing now. 

"Who  will  you  get  to  go,  Jan,"  he  was  asking  eagerly 
without  more  ado. 

"You  must  leave  that  to  me,  Evan." 

"One  of  the  Old  Boys?" 

"If  I'm  to  help  you,  Evan,  you  must  leave  it  all  to 
me." 

"  Of  course  you  know  so  many  more  of  them  than  I  do. 
It's  your  third  year.  ..." 

Evan  was  unconsciously  accounting  for  an  enviable 
influence  among  the  young  men  with  the  famous  colours. 
To  be  sure,  Jan  was  now  a  Pilgrim  himself;  he  was  already 
one  of  them.  Jan  Rutterl  But  it  was  certainly  decent 
of  him,  very  decent  indeed,  especially  when  they  had  seen 
so  little  of  each  other  all  the  year.  Evan  was  not  un- 
aware that  he  had  treated  Jan  rather  badly,  that  Jan 
was  therefore  treating  him  really  very  well.  It  enabled 
him  to  overlook  the  rather  triumphant  air  of  secrecy 
which  it  pleased  Jan  to  adopt.  After  all,  it  was  perhaps 
better  that  he  should  not  know  beforehand  who  was 
actually  going  to  step  into  the  breach.  The  chances  were 
that  almost  any  Old  Boy,  remembering  that  blackguard 


INTERLUDE  IN  A  STUDY  275 

Mulberry,  would  be  only  too  glad  to  give  him  a  fright, 
if  not  to  lend  the  money  to  pay  him  off. 

But  even  Evan  was  not  bhnded,  by  these  lightening 
considerations,  to  his  immediate  obligations  to  Jan. 

"I  never  expected  you  to  help  me  like  this,"  he  said 
frankly.  "I  only  came  to  ask  you  about  this  afternoon. 
I — I  was  thinking  of  shamming  seedy!" 

Jan  seemed  struck  with  the  idea;  he  said,  more  than 
once,  that  it  was  a  jolly  good  idea;  but  there  would  have 
been  a  great  risk  of  his  being  seen,  and  now  thank  good- 
ness all  that  was  unnecessary.  If  only  they  could  first 
save  the  follow,  and  then  get  those  Old  Boys  out  quickly 
before  lunch!  That  would  be  worth  doing  still,  Jan 
hastened  to  add,  as  though  aware  of  some  inconsist- 
ency in  his  remarks.  His  eyes  were  alight.  He  looked 
capable  of  all  his  old  feats,  as  he  stood  up  in  the 
litter  from  which  a  fag  could  not  cleanse  the  Augean 
study. 

But  Evan  fell  into  a  shamefaced  mood;  he  was  getting 
a  sad  insight  into  himself  as  compared  with  Jan;  his  self- 
conceit  was  suffering  even  on  tiie  surface.  Jan  would 
never  have  fallen  into  Mulberry's  clutches;  he  would 
have  kept  him  in  his  place,  as  indeed  Sandham  had  done; 
either  of  those  two  were  capable  of  coping  with  fifty  Mul- 
berrys,  whereas  Evan  had  to  own  to  himself  that  he  was 
no  match  for  one.  He  may  even  have  realised,  even  at 
that  early  stage  of  his  career,  that  in  all  the  desperate 
passes  of  life  he  was  a  natural  follower  and  a  ready  leaner 
on  others.  If  he  was  not  so  very  ready  to  lean  on  Jan, 
there  were  reasons  for  his  reluctance.  .  .  .  And  at  least 
one  reason  did  him  credit. 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  should  want  to  do  all  this  for 
me,"  he  murmured  on  their  way  down  to  the  ground. 
"It  isn't  as  if  I'd  ever  done  anything  for  you!" 


276  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Haven't  you!"  said  Jan.  They  were  arm-in-arm 
once  more,  to  his  huge  inward  joy. 

"I'll  do  anything  in  the  world  after  this.  I'll  never 
forget  it  in  all  my  days. " 

"You've  done  quite  enough  as  it  is." 

"I  wish  I  knew  what!"  sighed  Evan,  honestly. 

And  he  seemed  quite  startled  when  Jan  reminded  him. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  SECOND  MORNING's  PLAY 

"By  Jove!"  exclaimed  Carpenter  in  the  scoring  tent. 
*'  I  haven't  seen  Jan  do  that  for  years.  It  used  to  mean 
that  he  was  on  the  spot." 

"He  did  it  when  he  went  in  just  now,"  replied  the 
praepostor  who  was  scoring.  "It  only  meant  five  more 
runs  to  him  then." 

"But  those  five  saved  the  follow!  I  don't  believe  he 
meant  to  get  any  more." 

"You  don't  suggest  that  he  got  out  on  purpose. 
Chips?" 

"  I  shouldn't  wonder.  I  know  he  told  me  the  wicket 
would  be  just  right  for  him  when  the  heavy  roller  had 
been  over  it.     By  Jove,  he's  doing  it  again!" 

What  Jan  had  done,  and  was  doing  again,  was  some- 
thing which  had  been  chaffed  out  of  him  his  first  year  in 
the  Eleven.  He  was  pulling  the  white  cap,  with  the 
honourably  faded  blue  ribbon,  tight  down  over  his  head, 
so  that  his  ears  became  unduly  prominent,  and  his  back 
hair  gaped  transversely  to  the  scalp. 

The  scorer  remarked  that  he  had  better  sharpen  his 
pencil,  and  Jan  retorted  that  he  had  better  watch  Uie  over 
first.  It  was  the  first  over  of  the  Old  Boys*  second 
innings,  and  the  redoubtable  Swiller  had  already  taken 
guard.     Jan  ran  up  to  the  wicket,  with  all  his  old  clumsy 

277 


278  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

precision,  but  more  buoyancy  and  verve  than  he  put  into 
his  run  now  as  a  rule.  And  the  Swiller's  shaven  face 
broke  into  a  good-humoured  grin  as  the  ball  went  thud 
into  the  wicket-keeper's  gloves;  it  had  beaten  him  com- 
pletely; the  next  one  he  played;  off  the  third  he  scored 
a  brisk  single;  and  this  brought  Charles  Cave  to  the 
striker's  crease,  with  the  air  of  the  player  who  need  never 
have  got  out  in  the  first  innings,  and  had  half  a  mind  not 
to  do  it  again. 

Curious  to  find  that  even  in  those  comparatively  recent 
days  there  were  only  four  balls  to  the  over  in  an  ordinary 
two-day  match;  but  such  was  the  case,  according  to  the 
bound  volume  consulted  on  the  point;  and  the  fourth 
and  last  ball  of  Jan's  first  over  in  a  memorable  innings 
has  a  long  line  to  itself  in  the  report.  It  appears  to 
have  been  his  own  old  patent,  irreproachable  in  length, 
but  pitching  well  outside  the  off-stump,  and  whipping  in 
like  lightning.  It  sent  Charles  Cave's  leg-bail  flying  over 
thirty  yards,  if  we  are  to  believe  contemporary  measure- 
ments. But  the  reporter  refrains  from  stating  that  Jan 
had  given  the  peak  of  his  cap  a  special  tweak,  though  the 
fact  was  not  lost  upon  him  at  the  time. 

"Bowled,  sir,  bowled  indeed!**  roared  Chips  from  the 
tent.  "  I  knew  it'd  be  a  trimmer;  didn't  you  fellows  see 
how  he  pulled  down  his  cap  ?  " 

And  the  now  really  great  Charles  Cave  stalked  back  to 
the  pavilion  with  the  nonchalant  dignity  of  a  Greek  statue 
put  into  flannels  and  animated  with  the  best  old  EngHsh 
blood.  But  at  the  pavilion  chains  he  had  a  word  to  say 
to  the  next  batsman,  already  emerging  with  indecent 
haste. 

The  next  batsman  was  one  of  the  bronzed  brigade 
who  could  not  grace  the  old  ground  every  season.  This 
one  had  been  in  the  Eleven  two  years  in  his  time,  and 


THE  SECOND  MORNING'S  PLAY        279 

had  since  made  prodigious  scores  in  regimental  cricket  in 
India.  In  the  first  innings,  nevertheless,  he  had  shown 
want  of  practice  and  failed  to  score;  hence  this  bustle 
to  avoid  the  dreaded  pair.  He  was  rewarded  by  watch- 
ing S wilier  Wilman  play  an  over  from  young  Cave  with 
ease,  scoring  three  off  the  last  ball,  and  then  playing 
a  maiden  from  Jan  with  more  pains  than  confidence. 
The  gallant  soldier  did  indeed  draw  blood,  with  a  sweep- 
ing swipe  in  the  following  over  from  the  younger  Cave. 
But  the  first  ball  he  had  from  Jan  was  also  his  last; 
and  the  very  next  one  was  too  much  for  ex-captain 
Bruce. 

"I  told  you  it'd  all  come  back,  Rutter,"  said  Wilman 
with  wry  laughter  at  the  bowler's  end.  "I'm  sorry  I 
commenced  prophet  quite  so  soon. " 

"It's  the  wicket,"  Jan  explained,  genuinely  enough. 
"  I  always  liked  a  wicket  like  this — the  least  bit  less  than 
fast — but  you've  got  its  pace  to  a  nicety." 

"I  wish  I  had  yours.  You're  making  them  come  as 
quick  off  the  pitch  as  you  did  two  years  ago.  I  wish  old 
Boots  Ommaney  was  here  again. " 

"I'd  rather  have  him  to  bowl  to  than  the  next  man 
in.  Ommaney  always  plays  like  a  book,  but  Swallow's 
the  man  to  knock  you  off  your  length  in  the  first 
over!" 

Swallow  looked  that  man  as  he  came  in  grinning  but 
square-jawed,  with  a  kind  of  sunny  storm-light  in  his 
keen,  skilled  eyes.  It  was  capital  fun  to  find  this  boy 
suddenly  at  his  best  again;  good  for  the  boy,  better 
for  the  Eleven,  and  by  no  means  bad  for  an  old  man  of 
thirty-eight  who  was  actually  on  the  point  of  turning  out 
once  more  for  the  Gentlemen  at  Lord's.  Practice  and  the 
bowler  apart,  however,  it  would  never  do  for  the  Old  Boys 
to  go  to  pieces  after  leading  a  rather  weak  school  Eleven 


280  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

as  it  was  only  proper  that  they  should.  It  was  time  for 
a  stand,  and  certainly  a  stand  was  made. 

But  A.  G.  Swallow  did  not  knock  Jan  off  his  length; 
he  played  him  with  flattering  care,  and  was  content  to 
make  his  runs  off  Cave.  Jan  made  a  change  at  the  other 
end,  but  went  on  pegging  away  himself.  Wilman  began 
to  treat  him  with  less  respect  than  the  cricketer  of  high- 
est class;  in  club  cricket,  to  be  sure,  there  were  few 
sounder  or  more  consistent  players  than  the  Swiller.  He 
watched  the  ball  on  to  the  very  middle  of  a  perpendicular 
bat,  and  played  the  one  that  came  with  Jan's  arm  so  near 
to  his  left  leg  that  there  was  no  room  for  it  between  bat 
and  pad.  And  he  played  it  so  hard  that  with  luck  it 
went  to  the  boundary  without  really  being  hit  at  all. 

Twenty,  thirty,  forty,  fifty,  went  up  in  sedate  yet 
slightly  accelerated  succession.  Jan  was  trying  all  he 
knew,  and  now  he  had  Cave  back  at  the  other  end.  An- 
other ten  or  so,  and  he  felt  that  he  himself  must  take 
a  rest,  especially  as  A.  G.  Swallow  was  beginning  to  hit 
ruthlessly  all  round  the  wicket.  Yet  Wilman 's  was  the 
wicket  he  most  wanted,  and  it  was  on  Wilman  that  he 
was  trying  all  his  wiles — ^but  one.  That  fatal  leg-break 
was  not  in  his  repertoire  for  the  day;  he  had  forsworn  it 
to  himself  before  taking  the  field,  and  he  kept  his  vow 
like  a  man. 

What  he  was  trying  to  do  was  to  pitch  the  other  ball 
a  little  straighter,  a  fraction  slower,  and  just  about  three 
inches  shorter  than  all  the  rest;  at  last  he  did  it  to  per- 
fection. Wilman  played  forward  pretty  hard,  the  ball 
came  skimming  between  the  bowler  and  mid-off,  and  Jan 
shot  out  his  left  hand  before  recovering  his  balance. 
The  ball  hit  it  in  the  right  place,  his  fingers  closed  auto- 
matically, and  he  had  made  a  very  clever  catch  off  his 
own  bowling. 


THE  SECOND  MORNING'S  PLAY        281 

"Well  caught,  old  fellow!"  cried  Evan  from  mid-off 
before  any  of  them.     "I  was  afraid  I'd  baulked  you." 

The  others  were  as  loud  in  their  congratulations,  and 
the  field  rang  with  cheers.  But  Evan  kept  Jan  button- 
holed at  mid-off,  and  they  had  a  whisper  together  while  the 
new  batsman  was  on  his  way  out. 

"What  about  bowling  them  all  out  by  lunch?  You 
might  almost  do  it  after  all!" 

"  I  mean  to,  now. " 

"  Six  wickets  in  three  quarters  of  an  hour  ?  " 

"But  there's  not  another  Wilman  or  Swallow." 

"  We  shan't  get  him  in  a  hurry. " 

"Even  if  we  don't  I  believe  I  can  run  through  the 
rest." 

"You're  a  wonder!"  exclaimed  Evan,  then  drew  still 
nearer  and  dropped  his  voice.     "I  say,  Jan!" 

"  What  is  it  ?    There's  a  man  in. " 

"  If  you  did  get  them  I  might  still  go  by  myself  this 
afternoon. " 

"Rot!" 

"  I'd  have  time  if  you  put  me  in  as  late  as  I  deserve. 
I  can  fight  my  own  battle.    I  really " 

"  Shut  up,  will  you  ?    Man  in ! " 

Two  overs  later  the  new  batsman  had  succumbed  to 
Jan  after  a  lofty  couple  through  the  slips;  but  A.  G.  Swal- 
low had  begun  to  force  the  game  in  a  manner  more  de- 
lightful to  watch  from  the  ring  than  at  close  quarters.  He 
did  not  say  it  was  his  only  chance.  He  was  too  old  a  hand 
to  discuss  casualties  with  the  enemy.  He  kept  his  own 
counsel  in  the  now  frequent  intervals,  but  his  keen  eyes 
sparkled  with  appreciation  of  the  attack  (from  one  end) 
and  with  zest  in  the  exercise  of  his  own  higher  powers. 
Enterprise  and  defense  had  not  been  demanded  of  him  in 
such  equal  measure  for  some  past  time;  and  yet  with  all  his 


282  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

preoccupation  he  had  a  fatherly  eye  upon  the  young  bowler 
who  was  making  this  tax  upon  his  tried  resources.  Really, 
on  his  day,  the  boy  was  good  enough  to  bowl  for  almost 
any  side;  and  he  seemed  quite  a  nice  boy,  too,  to  A.  G. 
Swallow,  though  perhaps  a  little  rough.  As  to  unpopu- 
larity, there  was  no  sign  of  that  now;  that  good-looking 
little  chap  at  mid-ofF  seemed  fond  enough  of  him;  and  he 
was  not  the  only  one.  At  the  fall  of  each  wicket  a  bigger 
and  more  enthusiastic  band  surrounded  the  heroic  bowler; 
the  cheers  were  louder  from  every  quarter.  If  an  un- 
popular fellow  could  achieve  this  popular  success,  well,  it 
said  all  the  more  for  his  pluck  and  personality. 

Eight  wickets  were  down  for  95,  and  Jan  had  taken 
every  one  of  them,  before  Stratten  stayed  with  Swallow  and 
there  was  another  stand.  Stratten  was  only  a  moderate 
bats,  but  he  had  been  two  years  in  the  team  with  Jan, 
and  three  years  in  the  same  house,  and  he  knew  how  to 
throw  his  left  leg  across  to  the  ball  that  looked  as  though 
it  wanted  cutting.  He  had  never  made  30  runs  off  Jan 
in  a  game,  and  he  did  not  make  10  to-day,  but  he  stayed 
while  the  score  rose  to  130  and  the  clock  crept  round  to 
1.15;  then  he  spoilt  Jan's  chance  of  all  ten  wickets  by 
being  caught  in  the  country  off  a  half-volley  from  Goose — 
last  hope  at  the  other  end. 

Swallow  had  crossed  before  the  catch  was  made,  and 
he  trotted  straight  up  to  Jan  in  the  slips. 

"Hard  luck,  Rutter!  I  hoped  you  were  going  to  set 
up  a  new  school  record." 

"I  don't  care  as  long  as  we  get  you  all  out  before 
lunch." 

Jan  was  wiping  the  cluster  of  beads  from  his  forehead, 
and  dashing  more  from  the  peak  of  his  cap  before  pulling 
it  down  once  more  over  his  nose.  He  only  saw  his  mis- 
take when  A.  G.  Swallow  looked  at  him  with  a  smile. 


THE  SECOND  MORNING'S  PLAY        283 

"Why  before  lunch,  with  the  afternoon  before  us?" 

"Because  I  feel  dead!"  exclaimed  Jan  with  abnormal 
presence  of  mind.  "  I  could  go  on  now  till  I  drop,  but  I 
feel  more  like  l^ing  up  than  lunch." 

"Not  measles,  I  hope?"  said  Swallow;  and  certainly 
Jan  looked  very  red. 

"Had  'em,"  said  he  laconically. 

"  Then  it's  either  cause  or  effect, "  remarked  Swallow, 
turning  to  George  Grimwood,  who  had  long  looked  as 
inflated  as  though  he  had  taught  Jan  all  he  knew.  "  I've 
often  noticed  that  one  does  one's  best  things  when  one 
isn't  absolutely  fighting  fit,  and  I've  heard  lots  of  fellows 
say  the  same." 

Now  George  Grimwood,  as  already  stated,  was  a 
professional  cricketer  of  high  standing  and  achievement; 
but  by  this  time  he  was  also  a  school  umpire  of  the  keenest 
type,  and  his  original  humanity  had  not  shown  itself 
altogether  proof  against  the  foibles  of  that  subtly  demoral- 
ising office.  Not  only  did  he  take  to  himself  entirely 
undue  credit  for  Mr.  Rutter's  remarkable  performance, 
but  he  grudged  Mr.  Goose  that  last  wicket  far  more  than 
Jan  did.  One  hope,  however,  the  professional  had  cher- 
ished all  the  morning,  and  it  was  not  yet  dead  in  his  breast. 
He  longed  to  see  Mr.  Swallow,  his  own  old  opponent 
on  many  a  first-class  field,  succumb  to  his  young  colt  in 
the  end;  and  now  there  was  not  much  chance  of  it,  with 
only  one  more  over  before  lunch,  especially  if  Mr.  Rutter 
was  really  going  to  lie  up  afterwards. 

So  this  was  what  happened — it  may  have  been  the  very 
soundest  verdict — but  as  the  climax  of  a  great  perform- 
ance it  was  not  altogether  satisfactory.  Whitfield  major, 
the  last  batsman,  who  really  might  have  gone  in  earlier, 
clubbed  the  first  ball  of  Jan's  last  over  for  three.  The  next 
ball  may  or  may  not  have  been  on  the  off-stump.    It 


284  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

appeared  to  come  from  a  tired  arm,  to  lack  the  sting  of 
previous  deliveries,  to  be  rather  a  slower  ball  and  as  such 
just  short  of  a  really  good  length.  But  A.  G.  Swallow, 
still  notoriously  nimble  on  his  feet,  came  out  to  hit  across 
a  straight  half-volley  on  the  strength  of  the  usual  break. 
He  missed  the  ball,  and  it  hit  his  pad;  but  there  was  no 
appeal  from  the  bowler.  That  was  the  great  point  against 
George  Grimwood.  Jan  was  giving  his  cap  another  tug 
over  his  nose,  when  consequential  Evan  appealed  for  him 
from  mid-off. 

"Out!"  roared  the  redoubtable  George  without  an 
instant's  hesitation.  The  Old  Boys'  second  innings  had 
closed  for  133.  Jan  had  taken  9  wickets  for  41  runs.  And 
A.  G.  Swallow  was  last  out  for  57 — if  out  at  all — and  his 
eagle  eye  was  clouded  with  his  own  opinion  on  the  point. 

The  school  was  already  streaming  off  the  ground  on  its 
way  back  to  dinner  in  the  houses;  but  many  remained, 
and  some  turned  back,  to  give  batsmen  and  bowler  the 
reception  they  deserved.  More  articulate  praises  pursued 
them  to  the  dressing-room.  These  ran  like  water  off  Jan's 
back  as  he  sat  stolidly  changing  his  shoes;  for  in  those 
days  the  players  dispersed  to  luncheon  in  the  houses  also. 
He  explained  his  apparent  ungraciousness  by  some  further 
mention  of  "a  splitting  head."  But  as  a  matter  of  fact 
he  had  every  one  of  his  wits  about  him,  and  his  most 
immediate  anxiety  was  to  avoid  Evan,  whom  he  saw 
obviously  waiting  to  waylay  him.  He  made  a  point  of 
writing  out  the  order  of  going  in  before  leaving  the  pa- 
vilion. It  was  the  same  order  as  before,  except  that  Jan 
promoted  the  last  two  men  and  wrote  his  own  name  last 
of  all. 

"I'll  turn  up  if  I  can,"  he  announced  as  he  tacked 
himself  on  to  Charles  Cave,  of  all  people,  to  Evan's  final 
discomfiture.    "  But  let's  hope  I  shan't  be  wanted;  unless 


THE  SECOND  MORNING'S  PLAY       285 

it's  a  case  of  watching  the  other  fellow  make  the  winning 
hit,  I  shall  be  as  much  use  in  my  study  as  on  the 
pitch." 

Evan  heard  this  as  he  walked  as  near  them  as  he  very 
well  could.  The  narrow  street  was  a  running  river  of 
men  and  boys  with  glistening  foreheads,  who  hugged  the 
shadows  and  shrank  ungratefully  from  the  first  hot  sun- 
shine of  tlie  term.  Charles  Cave,  stalking  indolently 
next  the  wall,  said  he  hoped  Jan  was  going  up  to  the  'Var- 
sity, as  they  wanted  bowlers  there,  and  a  man  who  could 
bowl  like  that  would  stand  a  good  chance  of  his  Blue 
at  either  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  Jan  replied  that  he 
was  afraid  he  was  not  going  to  either,  but  to  the  Colonies, 
a  scheme  which  the  other  seemed  to  consider  so  deplorable 
that  Evan  dropped  out  of  earshot  from  a  feeling  that  the 
conversation  was  beginning  to  take  a  private  turn.  And 
sure  enough,  after  a  pause,  it  took  one  that  surprised  Jan 
himself  almost  as  much  as  it  did  Charles  Cave. 

"Beggars  can't  be  choosers,"  said  Jan  with  apparent 
deliberation,  but  in  reality  on  as  sudden  an  impulse  as 
ever  dictated  spoken  words.  "You  see,  you  don't  know 
what  it  is  to  be  a  beggar.  Cave  I" 

"I  don't,  I'm  glad  to  say." 

"Well,  I  do,  and  it's  rather  awkward  when  you're 
captain  of  the  Eleven. " 

"It  must  be." 

"It  is.  Cave,  and  if  you  could  lend  me  a  fiver  I'd 
promise  to  pay  you  back  before  the  end  of  the  term. " 

The  calm  speech  was  so  extraordinarily  calm,  the  tone 
so  matter-of-fact  and  every-day,  that  after  a  second's 
amazement  the  Old  Boy  could  only  assume  that  Jan's 
splitting  head  had  already  affected  the  mind  within. 
That  charitable  construction  did  not  prevent  Charles 
Cave  from  refusing  the  monstrous  request  with  equal 


286  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

coolness  and  promptitude;  and  an  utterly  unabashed 
reception  of  the  rebuff  only  confirmed  his  conclusion. 

"After  all,  why  should  you?"  asked  Jan,  with  a 
strange  chuckle.  "But  I  shall  have  to  raise  it  some- 
where, and  I  daresay  you  won't  tell  anybody  that  I  tried 
you  first." 

And  before  there  could  be  any  answer  to  that,  Jan 
had  turned  without  ceremony  into  Heath's,  the  saddler's 
shop,  where  the  boys  bespoke  flies  to  take  them  to  their 
trains  at  the  end  of  the  term.  As  a  rule  these  orders 
were  booked  weeks  beforehand,  but  the  fly  that  Jan  now 
ordered  was  to  be  outside  Mr.  Heriot's  quad  at  2.45  that 
afternoon. 

"Is  it  to  go  to  Molton,  sir?" 

"That's  it." 

"But  there's  no  train  before  the  4.10,  Mr.  Rutter." 

"  I  can't  help  that.  I  was  asked  to  order  it  for  some 
people  who're  down  for  the  match.  They  may  be  going 
to  see  some  of  the  sights  of  the  country  first. " 

Outside  the  shop,  he  found  Evan  waiting  for  him. 

"I  say,  Jan,  what's  all  this  about  your  being 
seedy?" 

"  That's  my  business.    Do  you  think  I'm  shamming  ?  " 

Evan  missed  the  twinkle  again.  There  was  some 
excuse  for  him.     It  was  unintentional  now. 

"  I  don't  know,  but  if  I  thought  you  were  going  your- 
self  " 

"Shut  up,  Evan  I  That's  all  settled.  You  go  in 
fourth  wicket  down  again,  and  mind  you  make  some. " 

"But  if  you're  seen " 

"What  on  earth  makes  you  think  I'm  going?  I've 
fixed  up  the  whole  thing.  That  should  be  good  enough,  I 
thought  you  left  it  to  me?" 

At  Heriot's  corner,  old  Bob  himself  was  standing  in 


THE  SECOND  MORNING'S  PLAY       287 

conversation  with  Mr.  Haigh,  the  two  of  them  mechani- 
cally returning  the  no  less  perfunctory  salutes  of  the 
passing  stream.  Charles  Cave  had  paused  a  moment 
before  going  on  into  the  house. 

"  I'm  afraid  the  hero  of  the  morning's  a  bit  off-colour, 
Mr.  Heriot." 

"NotRutter?" 

Cave  nodded. 

"He  says  his  head's  bad.  I  think  it  must  be.  It 
looks  to  me  like  a  touch  of  the  sun." 

"I  hope  not,"  said  Heriot,  as  Cave  passed  on.  "He 
really  is  a  fine  fellow,  Haigh,  as  well  as  the  fine  bowler 
you've  just  seen  once  more.  I  sometimes  think  you 
might  forget  what  he  was,  after  all  these  years." 

"Oh,  I've  nothing  against  the  fellow,"  said  Haigh, 
rather  grandly.  "But  I  take  a  boy  as  I  find  him,  and 
I  found  Rutter  the  most  infernal  nuisance  I  ever  had  in 
my  form." 

"Years  ago!" 

"Well,  at  all  events,  there's  no  question  of  a  grudge 
on  my  side.  I  wouldn't  condescend  to  bear  a  grudge 
against  a  boy." 

Haigh  spoke  as  though  he  really  wished  to  mean  what 
he  said.  His  general  principles  were  as  sound  as  his 
heart  could  be  kind,  but  both  were  influenced  by  a  temper 
never  meant  for  schoolmastering.  At  this  moment  Jan 
and  Evan  hove  into  sight,  and  Heriot  detained  the  crick- 
eter of  his  house,  questioned  him  about  his  head,  re- 
assured himself  as  to  a  former  authentic  attack  of  measles, 
and  finally  agreed  with  Jan's  suggestion  that  he  should 
stay  quietly  in  his  study  until  he  felt  fit  to  go  back  to  the 
ground.     He  did  not  want  any  lunch. 

Meanwhile,  Haigh  had  not  gone  off  up  the  hill,  but 
had  stayed  to  put  in  a  difficult  word  or  two  of  his  own,  as 


288  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

though  to  prove  the  truth  of  his  assertion  to  Heriot.  He 
went  further  as  Jan  was  about  to  turn  down  to  the  quad. 

"  By  the  way,  Rutter,  I've  a  very  good  prescription  for 
that  kind  of  thing,  now  I  think  of  it.  I'll  send  it  up  to 
you  if  you  like. " 

"Oh,  thank  you,  sir,"  said  Jan  politely. 

"You  shall  have  it  as  soon  as  they  can  make  it  up. 
They've  probably  kept  a  copy  at  the  chemist's.  I'll  go  in 
and  see." 

Jan  could  only  thank  his  old  enemy  again,  and  so 
retreat  from  the  embarrassment  of  further  tributes  to  his 
successful  malingering.  It  was  a  loathsome  part  to  play, 
especially  for  a  blunt  creature  who  had  very  seldom  played 
a  part  in  his  life.  But  there  were  worse  things  in  front 
of  him,  if  he  was  to  carry  out  his  resolve,  and  do  the  deed 
which  he  never  seriously  dreamt  of  deputing  to  another. 
It  was  more  than  risky.  But  it  could  be  done;  nor  was 
the  risk  the  greatest  obstacle.  Money  was  at  once  the 
crux  and  the  touchstone  of  the  situation.  No  use  tackling 
Cerberus  without  a  decent  sop  up  one's  sleeve!  And  Jan 
had  only  just  eight  shillings  left. 

He  sat  in  his  bleak,  untidy  study,  listening  to  the 
sound  of  knives  and  forks  and  voices  in  the  hall,  and  eye- 
ing those  few  possessions  of  his  which  conceivably  might 
be  turned  into  substantial  coin  of  the  realm.  There  were 
the  four  or  five  second  and  third  prizes  that  he  had  won 
in  the  sports,  and  there  was  his  mother's  gold  watch.  -It 
he  had  worn  throughout  his  schooldays;  and  it  had  struck 
him  very  much  in  the  beginning  that  nobody  had  ever 
asked  him  why  he  wore  a  lady's  watch;  but  there  were 
some  things  about  which  even  a  new  boy's  feelings  were 
respected,  now  he  came  to  think  of  it.  .  .  .  He  came  to 
think  of  too  many  things  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
pressing  question;  of  the  other  watch  that  he  had  won  at 


THE  SECOND  MORNING'S  PLAY        289 

the  fair,  and  sold  at  the  time  for  the  very  few  shillings  it 
would  bring;  of  the  mad  way  in  which  he  had  thrown 
himself  into  that  adventure,  just  as  he  was  throwing  him- 
self into  this  one  now.  But  it  was  no  good  raking  up  the 
past  and  comparing  it  with  the  present.  Besides,  there 
had  been  no  sense  in  the  risk  he  ran  then;  and  now  there 
was  not  only  sense  but  necessity. 

So  absolute  was  the  necessity  in  Jan's  view  that  he 
would  not  have  hesitated  to  part  with  his  precious  watch 
for  the  time  being,  if  only  there  had  been  a  pawnbroker's 
shop  within  reach;  but,  perhaps  by  arrangement  with  the 
school  authorities,  there  was  no  such  establishment  in  the 
little  town;  and  there  was  no  time  to  try  the  ordinary 
tradesmen,  even  if  there  was  one  of  them  likely  to  com- 
ply and  to  hold  his  tongue.  Jan  thought  of  Lloyd,  the 
authorised  jeweller,  thought  of  George  Grimwood  and 
old  Maltby,  and  was  still  only  thinking  when  the  quad 
filled  under  his  window,  the  study  passage  creaked  and 
clattered  with  boots,  and  Chips  Carpenter  was  heard 
demanding  less  noise  in  a  far  more  authoritative  voice 
than  usual. 

It  was  almost  too  much  to  hear  poor  old  Chips  steal 
into  his  own  study  next  door  like  any  mouse  to  hear  what 
he  was  about,  and  how  quietly,  and  then  to  see  the  solic- 
itous face  he  poked  into  Jan's  study  before  going  back 
to  the  Upper.  Chips  left  him  his  Saturday  allowance  of  a 
shilling — that  made  nine — but  it  was  no  good  consulting 
or  trying  to  borrow  from  a  chap  who  hated  Evan.  Jan 
got  rid  of  him  with  a  twitch  of  preposterous  excruciation, 
and  in  a  very  few  minutes  had  the  studies  to  himself. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

INTERLUDE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Morgan,  the  man-servant,  and  his  myrmidon  of  the  boots 
and  knives,  were  busy  and  out  of  sight  in  the  pantry  near 
the  hall,  as  Jan  knew  they  would  be  by  this  time.  Yet 
he  was  flushed  and  flurried  as  he  ran  down  into  the  empty 
quad,  and  dived  into  the  closed  fly  which  had  just  pulled 
up  outside.  He  leant  as  far  back  as  possible.  The  road 
broadened,  the  town  came  to  an  end.  The  driver  drove  on 
phlegmatically,  without  troubling  his  head  as  to  why  one 
of  the  cricketing  young  gentlemen  should  be  faring  forth 
alone,  in  his  flannels,  too,  and  without  any  luggage  either. 
He  would  be  going  to  meet  his  friends  at  Molton,  likely, 
and  bring  them  back  to  see  the  cricket.  So  thought  the 
seedy  handler  of  shabby  ribbons,  so  far  as  he  may  be  said 
to  have  thought  at  all,  until  a  bare  head  stuck  out  behind 
him  at  Burston  Corner,  and  he  was  told  to  pull  up. 

"Jump  down  a  minute,  will  you?  I  want  to  speak 
to  you." 

The  fly  stopped  in  one  of  the  great  dappled  shadows 
that  trembled  across  the  wooded  road.  A  bucolic  counte- 
nance peered  over  a  huge  horse-shoe  pin  into  the  recesses 
of  the  vehicle. 

"See  here,  my  man;  here's  nine  bob  for  you.  I'm 
sorry  it  isn't  ten,  but  I'll  make  it  up  to  a  pound  at  the 
end  of  the  term." 

290 


INTERLUDE  IN  THE  WOOD  291 

"I'm  very  much  obliged  to  you,  sir,  I'm  sure!" 

"Wait  a  bit.  That's  only  on  condition  you  keep 
your  mouth  shut;  there  may  be  a  bit  more  in  it  when 
you've  kept  it  jolly  well  shut  till  then. 

"You're  not  going  to  get  me  into  any  trouble, 
sir?" 

"  Not  if  I  can  help  it  and  you  hold  your  tongue.  We're 
only  going  round  by  Yardley  Wood  instead  of  to  Mol- 
ton,  and  I  shan't  keep  you  waiting  there  above  half  an 
hour.     It's — its  only  a  bit  of  a  lark!" 

A  sinful  smile  grew  into  the  crab-apple  face  at  the  fly- 
window. 

"  I  been  a-watching  you  over  them  palings  at  bottom 
end  o'  ground  all  the  morning,  Mr.  Rutter,  but  I  didn't 
see  it  was  you  just  now,  not  at  first.  Lord,  how  you  did 
bool  'em  down  I  I'll  take  an'  chance  it  for  you,  sir,  jiggered 
if  I  don't!" 

The  fly  rolled  to  the  left  of  Burston  church,  now 
buried  belfry-deep  in  the  fretful  foliage  of  its  noble  avenue. 
It  threaded  the  road  in  which  Chips  had  encountered 
Evan  on  their  first  Sunday  walk;  there  was  the  stile 
where  Jan  had  waited  in  the  background,  against  the 
hedge.  Strange  to  think  of  Evan's  attitude  then  and 
long  afterwards,  and  of  Jan's  errand  now;  but  lots  of 
things  were  strange  if  you  were  fool  enough  to  stop  to 
think  about  them.  That  was  not  Jan's  form  of  folly 
when  once  committed  to  a  definite  course  of  action;  and 
any  such  tendency  was  extremely  quickly  quelled  on 
this  occasion.  He  had  more  than  enough  to  think  about 
in  the  interview  now  before  him.  It  was  almost  his  first 
opportunity  of  considering  seriously  what  he  was  to  say, 
how  he  had  better  begin,  what  line  exactly  it  would  be 
wisest  to  take,  and  what  tone  at  the  start.  It  was  annoy- 
ing not  to  be  able  to  decide  absolutely  beforehand;  it  was 


292  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

disconcerting,  too,  because  in  his  first  glow  the  very  words 
had  come  to  him  together  with  his  plan.  He  had  made 
short  work  of  the  noxious  Mulberry  almost  as  soon  as 
the  creature  had  taken  shape  in  his  mind.  But  on  second 
thoughts  it  appeared  possible  to  make  too  short  work  of  a 
scoundrel  with  tales  to  tell,  money  or  no  money.  And  by 
the  time  the  horse  was  walking  up  the  last  hill,  with  the 
green  lane  on  top,  Jan  had  thought  of  the  monstrous  Cacus 
in  the  Aventine  woods,  without  feeling  in  the  least  like  the 
superhuman  hero  of  the  legend. 

There  lay  the  celebrated  covert,  in  its  hollow  in  the 
great  grass  country.  In  the  heavy  sunlight  of  a  rainy 
summer,  the  smear  of  woodland,  dense  and  compressed, 
was  like  a  forest  herded  in  a  lane.  So  smoky  was  the 
tint  of  it,  from  the  green  heights  above,  that  one  would 
have  said  any  moment  it  might  burst  into  flames,  Hke 
a  damp  bonfire.  But  Jan  only  thought  of  the  mon- 
ster in  its  depths,  as  he  marched  down  through  the  lush 
meadows,  with  something  jingling  on  him  at  every  other 
stride. 

Yardley  Wood  was  bounded  by  a  dyke  and  a  fence,  and 
presented  such  a  formidable  tangle  of  trees  and  under- 
growth within,  that  Jan,  though  anxious  for  immediate 
cover,  steered  a  bold  course  for  the  made  opening.  The 
white  wicket  looked  positively  painted  on  the  dark  edge 
of  the  wood.  It  led  into  a  broad  green  ride,  spattered  with 
buttercups  as  thick  as  freckles  on  a  country  face. 

Jan  entered  the  ride,  and  peered  into  the  tangled  thicket 
on  either  hand.  Its  sombre  depths,  unplumbed  by  a  ray  of 
sun,  reminded  him  of  a  striking  description  in  one  of  the 
many  novels  that  Chips  had  made  him  read:  it  was 
twilight  there  already,  it  must  be  "dark  as  midnight  at 
dusk,  and  black  as  the  ninth  plague  of  Egypt  at  midnight. " 
And  there  was  another  plague  of  Egypt  that  Jan  recalled 


INTERLUDE  IN  THE  WOOD  293 

before  he  had  penetrated  a  yard  into  the  fringe  of  tangle- 
wood.  He  became  at  once  the  sport  and  target  of  a  myriad 
flies.  The  creatures  buzzed  aggressively  in  the  sudden 
stillness  of  the  natural  catacomb;  and  yet  above  their 
hum  the  tree-tops  made  iEolian  music  from  the  first 
moment  that  he  stood  beneath  them,  while  last  year's 
leaves,  dry  enough  there  even  in  that  wet  summer,  rustled 
at  every  jingling  step  he  took. 

And  now  his  steps  followed  the  wavering  line  of  least 
resistance,  and  so  turned  and  twisted  continually;  but  he 
would  not  have  taken  very  many  in  this  haphazard, 
tentative  fashion,  and  was  beginning  in  fact  to  bend  them 
back  towards  the  ride,  when  the  bulbous  nose  of  Mulberry 
appeared  under  his  very  own. 

It  was  making  music  worthy  of  its  painful  size,  as  he 
lay  like  a  log  on  the  broad  of  his  back,  in  a  small  open 
space.  His  battered  hat  lay  beside  him,  along  with  a 
stout  green  cudgel  newly  cut,  Jan  had  half  a  mind  to 
remove  this  ugly  weapon  as  a  first  preliminary;  but  it 
was  not  the  half  which  had  learnt  to  give  points  rather 
than  receive  them,  and  the  impulse  was  no  sooner  felt 
than  it  was  scorned.  Yet  tlie  drunkard  was  a  man  of  no 
light  build.  Neither  did  he  lie  like  one  just  then  particu- 
larly drunk,  or  even  very  sound  asleep.  The  flies  were 
not  allowed  to  batten  on  his  bloated  visage;  every  now 
and  then  the  snoring  stopped  as  he  shook  them  off;  and 
presently  a  pair  of  bloodshot  eyes  rested  on  Jan's  person. 

"So  you've  come,  have  you?"  grunted  Mulberry; 
and  the  red  eyes  shut  again  ostentatiously,  without  troub- 
ling to  climb  to  Jan's  face. 

"I  have,"  said  he,  with  dry  emphasis.  It  was  either 
too  dry  or  else  not  emphatic  enough  for  Mulberry. 

"You're  late,  then,  hear  that?  Like  your  cheek  to 
be  late.    Now  you  can  wait  for  me. " 


294  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Not  another  second!"  cried  Jan,  all  his  premeditated 
niceties  forgotten  in  that  molecule  of  time.  Mulberry 
sat  up,  blinking. 

"I  thought  it  was  Mr.  Devereux!" 

"I  know  you  did." 

"  Have  you  come  instead  of  him  ?  " 

"Looks  like  it,  doesn't  it?" 

"  I  don't  know  you!  I  won't  have  anything  to  do  with 
you,"  exclaimed  Mulberry,  with  a  drunken  dignity 
rendered  the  more  grotesque  by  his  difficulty  in  getting 
to  his  feet. 

"Well,  you  certainly  won't  have  anything  more  to  do 
with  Mr.  Devereux,"  retorted  Jan,  only  to  add:  "So  I'm 
afraid  you'll  have  to  put  up  with  me,"  in  a  much  more 
conciliatory  voice.  He  had  just  remembered  his  second 
thoughts  on  the  way. 

"Why?  What's  happened  him?"  asked  Mulberry, 
suspiciously. 

"Never  you  mind.  He  can't  come;  that 's  good  enough. 
But  I've  come  instead — to  settle  up  with  you. " 

"You  have,  have  you?" 

"  On  the  spot.     Once  for  all. " 

Jan  slapped  one  of  the  pockets  that  could  not  be 
abolished  in  cricket  trousers.  It  rang  like  a  money-bag 
flung  upon  a  counter.  The  reprobate  looked  impressed, 
but  still  suspicious  about  Evan. 

"He  was  to  come  here  yesterday,  and  he  never 
did." 

"It  wasn't  his  fault;  that's  why  I've  come  to-day." 

"  I  said  I'd  go  in  and  report  him  to  Mr.  Thrale,  if  he 
slipped  me  up  twice." 

"'Blab*  was  your  word.  Mulberry!" 

"Have  you  seen  what  I  wrote?" 

"  I  happen  to  have  got  it  in  my  pocket.  '* 


INTERLUDE  IN  THE  WOOD  295 

Mulberry  lurched  a  little  nearer.  Jan  shook  his 
head  with  a  grin. 

"It  may  come  in  useful.  Mulberry,  if  you  ever  get 
drunk  enough  to  do  as  you  threaten." 

"Useful,  may  it?" 

If  the  red  eyes  fixed  on  Jan  had  been  capable  of 
flashing,  they  ^would  have  done  so  now.  They  merely 
watered  as  though  with  blood.  Till  this  moment  man 
and  boy  had  been  only  less  preoccupied  with  the  flies  than 
with  each  other.  Mulberry  with  the  battered  hat  had 
vied  with  Jan  and  his  handkerchief  in  keeping  the  little 
brutes  at  bay.  But  at  this  point  the  swollen  sot  allowed 
the  flies  to  cover  his  hideousness  like  a  spotted  veil.  It 
was  only  for  seconds,  yet  to  Jan  it  was  almost  proof  that 
the  scamp  had  something  to  fear,  that  his  pressure  on 
Evan  was  rather  more  than  extortionate.  His  expression- 
less stare  had  turned  suddenly  expressive.  That  could 
not  be  the  flies.    Nor  was  it  only  what  Jan  thought  it  was. 

"I've  seen  you  before,  young  feller!"  exclaimed  Mul- 
berry. 

"You've  had  chances  enough  of  seeing  me  these 
four  years." 

"I  don't  mean  at  school.  I  don't  mean  at  school," 
repeated  Mulberry,  racking  his  muddled  wits  for  what- 
ever it  might  be  that  he  did  mean.  Jan  was  under  no  such 
necessity;  already  he  was  back  at  the  fair,  that  wet  and 
fateful  night  in  March — but  he  did  not  intend  Mulberry 
to  join  him  there  again. 

"  It's  no  good  you  trying  to  change  the  subject.  Mul- 
berry! I've  got  your  letter  to  Mr.  Devereux,  and  you'll 
hear  more  about  it  if  you  go  making  trouble  at  the  school. 
If  you  want  trouble.  Mulberry,  you  shall  have  all  the 
trouble  you  want,  and  p'r'aps  we'll  give  the  police  a 
bit  more  to  make  'em  happy.    See?    But  I  came  to 


296  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

square  up  with  you,  and  the  sooner  we  get  it  done  the 
better  for  all  the  lot  of  us." 

Jan  was  at  home.  Something  contracted  ages  ago, 
nay,  something  that  he  had  brought  with  him  into  the 
world,  something  of  his  father,  was  breaking  through  the 
layer  of  the  last  five  years.  It  had  broken  through  before. 
It  had  helped  him  to  fight  his  earliest  battles.  But  it 
had  never  had  free  play  in  all  these  terms,  or  in  the  holi- 
days between  terms.  This  was  neither  home  nor  school; 
this  was  a  bite  of  life  as  Jan  would  have  had  to  swallow 
it  if  his  old  life  had  never  altered.  And  all  at  once  it 
was  a  strapping  lad  from  the  stables,  an  Alcides  of  his 
own  kidney  and  no  young  gentleman,  with  whom  the 
local  Cacus  had  to  reckon. 

"Come  on!"  said  he  sullenly.  "Let's  see  the  colour 
o'  yer  coin,  an'  done  with  it." 

Jan  gave  a  conquerer's  grin;  yet  knew  in  his  heart 
that  the  tussle  was  still  to  come;  and  if  he  had  brought  a 
cap  with  him,  instead  of  driving  out  bare-headed  this 
was  the  moment  at  which  he  would  have  given  the  peak 
a  tug.  He  plunged  his  hand  into  the  jingling  pocket. 
He  brought  out  a  fistful  of  silver  of  all  sizes,  and  one  or 
two  half-sovereigns.  In  the  act  he  shifted  his  position, 
and  happened  to  tread — but  left  his  foot  firmly  planted — 
upon  that  ugly  cudgel  just  as  its  owner  stooped  to  pick 
it  up  and  almost  overbalanced  in  the  attempt. 

"Look  out,  mister!  That's  my  little  stick.  I'd  for- 
gotten it  was  there. " 

"  Had  you  ?  I  hadn't, "  said  Jan,  one  eye  on  his  money 
and  the  other  on  his  man.  "You  don't  want  it  now,  do 
you.  Mulberry?" 

"Notpartic'ly." 

"Then  attend  to  me.  There's  your  money.  Not  so 
fasti" 


INTERLUDE  IN  THE  WOOD  297 

His  fist  closed.    Mulberry  withdrew  a  horrid  paw. 

"  I  thought  you  said  it  was  mine,  mister  ?  " 

"It  will  be,  in  good  time.     Have  a  look  at  it  first." 

"Lot  o'  little  silver,  ain't  it?" 

"One  or  two  bits  of  gold  as  well." 

"It  may  be  more  than  it  looks;  better  let  me  count  it, 
mister," 

"It's  been  counted.  That's  the  amount;  you  sign 
that,  and  it's  yours. " 

With  his  other  hand  Jan  had  taken  from  another 
pocket  an  envelope,  stamped  and  inscribed,  but  not  as  for 
the  post,  and  a  stylographic  pen.  The  stamp  was  just  un- 
der the  middle  of  the  envelope;  above  was  written,  in 
Jan's  hand  and  in  ink: 

Received  in  final  payment  for  everything  supplied  in 
Yardley  Wood  to  end  of  June — 

£2  18*.  Qd. 

"Sign  across  the  stamp."  said  Jan  briskly.  Under- 
neath was  the  date. 

The  envelope  fluttered  in  the  drunkard's  fingers. 

"Two  p'un'  eighteen — look  here — this  won't  do!"  he 
cried  less  thickly  than  he  had  spoken  yet.  "What  the 
devil  d'you  take  me  for  ?  It's  close  on  five  golden  sover- 
eigns that  I'm  owed.    This  is  under  three. " 

"It's  all  you'll  get,  Mulberry,  and  it's  a  darned  sight 
more  than  you  deserve  for  swindling  and  blackmailing.  If 
you  don't  take  this  you  won't  get  anything,  except  what 
you  don't  reckon  on!" 

The  man  understood;  but  he  was  almost  foaming  at 
the  mouth. 

"  I  tell  you  it's  a  dozen  and  a  half  this  summer!  Half 
a  dozen  bottles  and  a  dozen " 


298  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"I  don't  care  what  it  is.  I  know  what  there's  been, 
what  you've  charged  for  it,  and  what  you've  been  paid 
already."  Jan  thought  it  time  for  a  bit  of  bluff.  "This 
is  all  you'll  get;  but  you  don't  touch  a  penny  of  it  till 
you've  signed  the  receipt. " 

"Don't  I!"  snarled  Mulberry.  Without  lowering 
his  flaming  eyes,  or  giving  Jan  time  to  lower  his,  he 
slapped  the  back  of  the  upturned  hand  and  sent  the  money 
flying  in  all  directions.  Neither  looked  where  it  fell. 
Mulberry  was  ready  for  a  blow.  Jan  never  moved  an 
eye,  scarcely  a  muscle.  And  over  them  rose  and  fell  such 
sylvan  music  as  had  been  rising  and  falling  all  the  time; 
only  now  their  silence  brought  it  home. 

"You'll  simply  have  to  pick  it  all  up  again,"  said  Jan 
quietly.  "But  if  you  don't  sign  this.  Mulberry,  I'm 
going  to  break  every  bone  in  your  beastly  body  with  your 
own  infernal  stick." 

He  finished  as  quietly  as  he  had  begun;  it  must  have 
been  his  face  that  said  still  more,  or  his  long  and  lissom 
body,  or  his  cricketer's  wrists.  Whatever  the  medium, 
the  message  was  understood,  and  twitching  hands  held 
out  in  token  of  submission.  Jan  put  the  pen  in  one,  the 
prepared  receipt  in  the  other,  and  Mulberry  turned  a 
back  bowed  with  defeat.  Close  behind  him  grew  a  stunted 
old  oak,  forked  like  a  catapult,  with  ivy  winding  up  the 
twin  stems.  Down  sat  Mulberry  in  the  fork,  and  with 
such  careless  precision  that  Jan  might  have  seen  it  was 
a  favourite  seat,  and  the  whole  little  open  space,  with  its 
rustling  carpet  and  its  whispering  roof,  its  acorns  and  its 
cigar  ends,  a  tried  old  haunt  of  others  besides  Mulberry. 
But  Jan  kept  so  close  an  eye  on  his  man  that  the  receipt 
was  being  signed,  on  one  corduroy  knee,  before  he  looked 
up  to  see  the  broad  bust  of  a  third  party  enclosed  in  the 
same  oak  frame. 


INTERLUDE  IN  THE  WOOD  299 

It  was  Mr.  Haigh,  and  in  an  instant  Jan  saw  him 
redder  than  Mulberry  himself.  It  was  Haigh  with  a 
limp  collar  and  a  streaming  face.  So  he  had  smelt  a  rat, 
set  a  watch,  and  followed  the  fly  on  foot  like  the  old 
athlete  that  he  was!  But  how  much  more  like  him  all 
the  rest.  Jan  not  only  came  tumbling  back  into  school 
life,  as  from  that  other  which  was  to  have  been  his,  but 
back  with  a  thud  into  the  Middle  Remove  and  all  its  old 
miseries  and  animosities. 

"I  might  have  known  what  to  expect!"  he  cried  with 
futile  passion.     "It's  about  your  form,  doing  the  spy!" 

Haigh  took  less  notice  of  this  insult  than  Jan  had 
known  him  to  take  of  a  false  quantity  in  school.  His  only 
comment  was  to  transfer  his  attention  to  Mulberry,  who 
by  now  had  scrambled  to  his  legs.  Leaning  through  the 
forked  tree,  the  master  held  out  his  hand  for  the  stamped 
envelope,  obtained  possession  of  it  without  a  word,  and 
read  it  as  he  came  round  into  the  open. 

"This  looks  like  your  writing,  Rutter?" 

"It  is  mine." 

Jan  was  still  more  indignant  than  abashed. 

"May  I  ask  what  it  refers  to?" 

"You  may  ask  what  you  please,  Mr.  Haigh." 
•"Come,  Rutter!  I  might  have  put  worse  posers,  I 
should  have  thought.  Still,  as  it  won't  be  for  me  to 
deal  with  you  for  being  here,  instead  of  wherever  you're 
supposed  to  be,  I  won't  press  inquiries  into  the  nature 
of  your  dealings  with  tliis  man." 

It  was  Mulberry's  turn  to  burst  into  the  breach;  he 
did  so  as  though  it  were  the  ring,  dashing  his  battered  hat 
to  the  ground  with  ominous  exultation. 

"Do  you  want  to  know  what  he's  had  off  me?"  he 
demanded  of  Haigh.     "If  he  won't  tell  you,  I  will!" 

Jan's  heart  sank  as  he  met  a  leer  of  vindictive  tri- 


300  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

umph.  "Who's  going  to  believe  your  lies?"  he  was 
rash  enough  to  cry  out,  in  a  horror  that  increased  with 
every  moment  he  had  for  thought. 

"I'm  not  going  to  Hsten  to  him,"  remarked  Haigh, 
unexpectedly.  "Or  to  you  either!"  he  snapped  at 
Jan. 

"  Oh,  ain't  you  ?  "  crowed  Mulberry.  "  Well,  you  can 
shut  your  ears,  and  you  needn't  believe  anything  but  your 
own  eyes.    I'll  show  you!    I'll  show  you!" 

He  dived  into  a  bramble  bush  alongside  the  old  forked 
tree.  It  was  a  literal  dive.  His  head  disappeared  in  the 
dense  green  tangle.  He  almost  lost  his  legs.  Then  a 
hand  came  out  behind  him,  and  flung  something  at  their 
feet.  It  was  an  empty  champagne  bottle.  Another 
followed,  then  another  and  another  till  the  open  space  was 
strewn  with  them.  Neither  Haigh  nor  Jan  said  a  word; 
but  from  the  bush  there  came  a  gust  of  ribaldry  or  ran- 
cour with  every  bottle,  and  last  of  all  the  man  himself, 
waving  one  about  him  like  an  Indian  club. 

"A  live  'un  among  the  deaders!"  he  roared  deliriously. 
"Now  I  can  drink  your  blessed  healths  before  I  go!" 

Master  and  boy  looked  on  like  waxworks,  without 
raising  a  hand  to  stop  him,  or  a  finger  between  them 
to  brush  away  a  fly.  Jan  for  his  part  neither  realised 
nor  cared  what  was  happening;  it  was  the  end  of  all 
things,  for  him  or  Evan,  if  not  for  them  both.  Evan  would 
hear  of  it — ^and  then — and  then!  But  would  he  hear? 
Would  he,  necessarily?  Jan  glanced  at  Haigh,  and 
saw  something  that  he  almost  liked  in  him  at  last;  some- 
thing human,  after  all  these  years;  but  only  until  Haigh 
saw  him,  and  promptly  fell  upon  the  flies. 

Mulberry  meanwhile  had  knocked  the  neck  off  the 
unopened  bottle  with  a  dexterous  blow  from  one  of  the 
empties.     A  fountain  of  foam  leapt  up   like  a  plume 


INTERLUDE  IN  THE  WOOD  301 

of  smoke;  the  pothouse  expert  blew  it  to  the  winds,  and 
drank  till  the  jagged  bottle  stood  on  end  upon  his  up- 
turned visage.  His  blood  ran  with  the  overflowing 
wine — scarlet  on  purple — ^and  for  a  space  the  draught 
had  the  curiously  clarifying  effect  of  liquor  on  the  chronic 
inebriate.  It  made  him  sublimely  sober  for  about 
a  minute.  The  sparkle  passed  from  the  wine 
into  those  dim  red  eyes.  They  fixed  themselves  on 
Jan's  set  face.  They  burst  into  a  flame  of  sudden 
recognition. 

"Now  I  remember!  Now  I  remember!  I  told  him 
I'd  seen  him " 

He  stopped  himself  with  a  gleam  of  inspired  cunning. 
He  had  nearly  defeated  his  immediate  ends.  He  looked 
Jan  deliberately  up  and  down,  did  the  same  by  Haigh, 
and  only  then  snatched  up  his  ugly  bludgeon. 

"You'd  better  be  careful  with  that,"  snapped  Haigh, 
with  the  face  which  had  terrorised  generations  of  young 
boys.  "And  the  sooner  you  clear  out  altogether,  let  me 
tell  you,  the  safer  it'll  be  for  you!" 

"No  indecent  haste,"  replied  Mulberry,  leaning  at 
ease  upon  his  weapon.  The  sparkle  of  the  wine  even 
reached  that  treacherous  tongue  of  his,  reviving  its  hu- 
mour and  the  smatterings  of  other  days.  "  Festina  Whats- 
'er-name — meaning  don't  you  be  in  such  a  blooming 
hurry!  That  nice  young  man  o'  yours  and  me,  we're  old 
partic'lars,  though  you  mightn't  think  it;  don't  you  run 
away  with  the  idea  that  he's  emptied  all  them  bottles 
by  his  little  self!  It  wouldn't  be  just.  I've  had  my 
share;  but  he  don't  like  paying  his,  and  that's  where 
there's  trouble.  Now  we  don't  keep  company  no  more, 
and  I'm  going  to  tell  you  where  that  nice  young  man 
an'  me  first  took  up  with  each  other.  Strictly  'tween 
ourselves." 


302  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"I've  no  wish  to  hear,"  cried  Haigh.  He  looked  as 
Jan  had  seen  him  look  before  running  some  fellow  out 
of  his  hall.     "Are  you  going  of  your  own  accord " 

"Let  him  finish,"  said  Jan,  with  a  grim  impersonal 
interest  in  the  point.  In  any  case  it  was  all  over  with 
him  now. 

"Very  kind  o*  nice  young  man — ^always  was  nice 
young  man!"  said  Mulberry.  "Stric'Iy  'tween  shelves 
it  was  in  your  market-place,  one  blooming  fair,  when 
all  good  boys  should  ha'  been  tucked  up  in  bed  an'  'sleep. 
Nasty  night,  tool  But  that's  where  I  see  'im,  havin* 
barney  about  watch,  I  recollec'.  That's  where  we 
first  got  old  partic'lars.  Arcade  Sambo — ^birds  of  eather — 
as  we  used  say  when  I  was  at  school.  I  seen  better 
days,  remember,  an'  that  nice  young  man'U  see  worse, 
an'  serve  him  right  for  the  way  he's  tret  his  ol'  p'rtic'lar, 
that  took  such  care  of  him  at  the  fair!  Put  that  in  your 
little  pipes  an'  smoke  it  at  the  school.  Farewell,  a  long 
farewell!    Gobleshyer    .     .     .     Gobleshyer     .     .     ." 

They  heard  his  reiterated  blessings  for  some  time 
after  he  was  out  of  sight.  It  was  not  only  distance 
that  rendered  them  less  and  less  distinct.  The  cham- 
pagne was  his  master — but  it  had  been  a  good  servant 
first. 

"At  any  rate  there  was  no  truth  in  that,  Rutter?" 
Haigh  seemed  almost  to  hope  that  there  was  none. 

"  It's  perfectly  true,  sir,  that  about  the  fair." 

"Yet  you  had  the  coolness  to  suggest  that  he  was 
lying  about  the  wine!" 

"  I  don't  suggest  anything  now. " 

Jan  kicked  an  empty  bottle  out  of  the  way.  The 
man's  second  tone  had  cut  him  as  deep  as  in  old  odious 
days  in  form. 

"Is  that  your  money  he's  left  behind  him?" 


INTERLUDE  IN  THE  WOOD  303 

Jan's  answer  was  to  go  down  on  his  knees  and  begin 
carefully  picking  up  the  forgotten  coins  from  the  carpet  of 
last  year's  leaves.  Haigh  watched  him  under  arched  eye- 
brows; and  once  more  the  flies  were  allowed  to  settle 
on  the  master's  limp  collar  and  wet  wry  face.  Then  he 
moved  a  bottle  or  so  with  furtive  foot,  and  kicked  a  coin 
or  two  into  greater  prominence,  behind  Jan's  bent  back. 

"When  you're  quite  ready,  Rutterl"  said  Haigh  at 
length. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

CLOSE  OF  PLAY 

It  is  remarked  of  many  people,  that  though  they  go 
through  Ufe  fretting  and  fuming  over  trifles,  and  making 
scenes  out  of  nothing  at  all,  yet  in  a  real  emergency  their 
calmness  is  quite  amazing.  It  need  not  amaze  anybody 
who  gives  the  matter  a  little  thought;  for  a  crisis  brings 
its  own  armour,  but  a  man  is  naked  to  the  insect  enemies 
of  the  passing  moment,  and  he  may  have  a  tender  moral 
and  intellectual  skin.  This  was  the  trouble  with  Mr. 
Haigh — ^a  naturally  irritable  man,  who  in  long  years  of 
chartered  tyranny  had  gradually  ceased  to  control  his 
temper  in  the  absence  of  some  special  reason  why  he 
should.  But  fellows  in  his  house  used  to  say  that  in  the 
worst  type  of  row  they  could  trust  Haigh  to  sort  out  the 
sinned  against  from  the  sinning,  and  not  to  lose  his  head, 
though  he  might  still  smack  theirs  for  whistling  in  his 
quad. 

Thus  it  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted  that  already  Mr. 
Haigh  had  more  sympathy  with  the  serious  offender  whom 
he  had  caught  red-handed  with  little  clods  who  ended 
pentameters  with  adjectives  or  showed  a  depraved  disre- 
gard for  the  caesura.  But  for  once  he  did  not  wear  his 
heart  upon  his  sleeve,  or  in  his  austere  eyes  and  distended 
nostrils;  his  very  shoulders,  as  Jan  followed  them  through 

304 


CLOSE  OF  PLAY  305 

the  wood,  looked  laden  with  fate  inexorable.  A  com- 
posure so  alien  and  abnormal  is  at  least  as  terrible  as  the 
wrath  that  is  slow  to  rise;  it  chilled  Jan's  blood,  but  it 
also  gave  him  time  to  see  things,  and  to  make  up  his 
mind. 

In  the  wood  and  in  the  ride  Haigh  did  not  even  turn 
his  head  to  see  that  he  was  being  duly  followed;  but  in 
the  lower  meadow  he  stopped  short,  and  waited  sombrely 
for  Jan. 

"There's  nothing  to  be  said,  Rutter,  as  between  you 
and  me,  except  on  one  small  point  that  doesn't  matter  to 
anybody  else.  I  gathered  just  now  that  you  were  not 
particularly  surprised  at  being  caught  by  me — that  it's 
what  you  would  have  expected  of  me — playing  the  spy! 
Well,  I  have  played  it  during  the  last  hour;  but  I  never 
should  have  dreamt  of  doing  so  if  your  own  rashness  had 
not  thrust  the  part  upon  me. " 

"I  suppose  you  saw  me  get  into  the  fly?"  said  Jan, 
with  a  certain  curiosity  in  the  incidence  of  his  frustration. 

"I  couldn't  help  seeing  you.  I  had  called  for  this 
myself,  and  was  in  the  act  of  bringing  it  to  you  for  your — 
splitting  head!" 

Haigh  had  produced  an  obvious  medicine  bottle 
sealed  up  in  white  paper.  Jan  could  not  resent  his 
sneer. 

"I'm  sorry  you  had  the  trouble,  sir.  There  was 
nothing  the  matter  with  my  head." 

"And  you  can  stand  there " 

Haigh  did  not  finish  his  sentence,  except  by  dashing 
the  medicine  bottle  to  the  ground  in  his  disgust,  so  that 
it  broke  even  in  that  rank  grass,  and  its  contents  soaked 
the  smooth  white  paper.  This  was  the  old  Adam,  but 
only  for  a  moment.  Jan  could  almost  have  done  with 
more  of  him. 


306  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"I  know  what  you  must  think  of  me,  sir,"  he  said. 
"  I  had  to  meet  a  blackmailer  at  his  own  time  and  place. 
But  that's  no  excuse  for  me. " 

"I'm  glad  you  don't  make  it  one,  I  must  say  I  I  was 
going  on  to  tell  you  that  I  followed  the  fly,  only  naturally, 
as  I  think  you'll  agree.  But  it  wasn't  my  fault  you  didn't 
hear  me  in  the  wood  before  you  saw  me,  Rutter.  I  made 
noise  enough,  but  you  were  so  taken  up  with  your — boon 
companion!" 

Jan  resented  that;  but  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
not  even  to  start  the  dangerous  game  of  self-defence. 

"  He  exaggerated  that  part  of  it, "  was  all  that  Jan  said, 
dryly. 

"So  I  should  hope.  It's  not  my  business  to  ask  for 
explanations " 

"  And  I've  none  to  give,  sir. " 

"  It's  only  for  me  to  report  the  whole  matter,  Rutter, 
as  of  course  I  must  at  once. " 

Jan  looked  alarmed. 

"Do  you  mean  before  the  match  is  over?  Must  the 
Eleven  and  all  those  Old  Boys " 

"Hear  all  about  it?  Not  necessarily,  I  should  say, 
but  it  won't  be  in  my  hands.  The  facts  are  usually  kept 
quiet  in — in  the  worst  cases — as  you  know.  But  I  shan't 
have  anything  to  say  to  that. " 

"You  would  if  it  were  a  fellow  in  your  house!"  Jan 
could  not  help  rejoining.  "  You'd  take  jolly  good  care  to 
have  as  little  known  as  possible — if  you  don't  mind  my 
saying  so!" 

Haigh  did  mind;  he  was  a  man  to  mind  the  slightest 
word,  and  yet  he  took  this  from  Jan  without  a  word  in 
reply.  The  fact  was  that,  much  to  his  annoyance  and  em- 
barrassment, he  was  beginning  to  respect  the  youth  more 
in  his  downfall  than  at  the  height  of  his  cricketing  fame. 


CLOSE  OF  PLAY  307 

Indeed,  while  he  had  grudged  a  great  and  unforeseen 
school  success  to  as  surly  a  young  numskull  as  ever 
impeded  the  work  of  the  Middle  Remove  (and  the  only 
one  who  ever,  ever  scored  off  Mr.  Haigh),  he  could  not  but 
recognise  the  manhood  of  the  same  boy's  bearing  in 
adversity — and  such  adversity  at  such  a  stage  in  his 
career!  There  had  been  nothing  abject  about  it  for  a 
moment,  and  now  there  was  neither  impertinence  nor 
bravado,  but  rather  an  unsuspected  sensibility,  rather  a 
redeeming  spirit  altogether.  Yet  it  was  an  aggravated 
case,  if  ever  there  had  been  one  in  the  whole  history  of 
schools;  a  more  deliberate  and  daring  piece  of  trickery 
could  not  be  imagined.  In  that  respect  it  was  typical 
of  the  drinking  row  of  Haigh's  experience.  And  yet  he 
found  himself  making  jaunty  remarks  to  Jan  about  the 
weather,  and  even  bringing  off  his  raucous  laugh  about 
nothing,  for  the  fly-man's  benefit,  as  they  came  up  to  where 
that  vehicle  was  waiting  in  the  lane. 

Haigh,  of  all  masters,  and  Jan  Rutter  of  all  the  boys 
who  had  ever  been  through  his  hands! 

That  was  the  feeling  that  preyed  upon  the  man,  the 
weight  he  tried  to  get  off  his  chest  when  they  had  dis- 
missed the  fly  outside  the  town,  and  had  walked  in  to- 
gether as  far  as  Heriot's  quad. 

"Well,  Rutter,  there  never  was  much  love  lost  be- 
tween us,  was  there?  And  yet — I  don't  mind  telling 
you — I  wish  any  other  man  in  the  place  had  the  job  you've 


given  me 


The  quad  was  still  deserted,  but  Jan  had  scarcely 
reached  his  study  when  a  hurried  but  uncertain  step 
sounded  in  the  passage,  and  a  small  fag  from  another 
house  appeared  at  his  open  door. 

"  Oh,  please,  Rutter,  I  was  sent  to  fetch  you  if  you're 


well  enough  to  bat.' 


308  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Who  sent  you?" 

"Goose." 

"  How  many  of  them  are  out  ?  " 

"Seven  when  I  left." 

"How  many  runs?" 

"  Hundred  and  sixty  just  gone  up. " 

" It  hadn't!     Who's  been  getting  them?" 

"Devereux,  principally." 

The  fag  from  another  house  always  said  that  Rutter 
lit  up  at  this  as  though  the  runs  were  already  made,  and 
then  that  he  gave  the  most  extraordinary  laugh,  but 
suddenly  asked  if  Devereux  was  out. 

"And  when  I  told  him  he  wasn't,"  said  the  fag,  "he 
simply  sent  me  flying  out  of  his  way,  and  by  the  time  I 
got  into  the  street  he  was  almost  out  of  sight  at  the  other 
end!" 

Certainly  they  were  the  only  two  creatures  connected 
with  the  school  who  were  to  be  seen  about  the  town  at 
half-past  four  that  Saturday  afternoon ;  and  half  the  town 
itself  seemed  glued  to  those  palings  affected  by  Jan's 
fly-man;  and  on  the  ground  every  available  boy  in  the 
school,  every  master  except  Haigh,  and  every  single 
master's  lady,  watched  the  game  without  a  word  about 
any  other  topic  under  the  sun.  Even  the  tea-tent,  a  great 
feature  of  the  festival,  under  the  auspices  of  Miss  Heriot 
and  other  ladies,  was  deserted  alike  by  all  parties  to  its 
usually  popular  entertainment. 

Evan  was  still  in,  said  to  have  made  over  70,  and 
to  be  playing  the  innings  of  his  life,  the  innings  of  the 
season  for  the  school.  But  another  wicket  must  have 
fallen  soon  after  the  small  fag  fled  for  Jan,  and  Chilton 
who  had  gone  in  was  not  shaping  with  conspicuous  con- 
fidence. Evan  looked,  however,  as  though  he  had  enough 
for  two,  from  the  one  glimpse  Jan  had  of  his  heated  but 


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collected  face,  and  the  one  stroke  he  saw  him  make,  before 
diving  into  the  dressing-room  to  clap  on  his  pads.  To 
think  that  Evan  was  still  in,  and  on  the  high  road  to  a 
century  if  anybody  could  stop  with  him!  To  think  he 
should  have  chosen  this  very  afternoon! 

It  was  at  this  point  that  the  hard  Fates  softened,  for 
a  time  only,  yet  a  time  worth  the  worst  they  could  do  to 
Jan  now.  They  might  not  have  given  him  pause  to  put 
his  pads  on  properly;  they  might  not  have  suffered  him  to 
get  his  breath.  When  he  had  done  both,  and  even  had 
a  wash,  and  pulled  his  cap  well  over  his  wet  hair,  they 
might  have  kept  him  waiting  till  the  full  flavour  of  their 
late  misdeeds  turned  his  heart  sick  and  faint  within  him. 
Instead  of  all  or  any  of  this,  they  propped  up  Chilton 
for  another  15  runs,  and  then  sent  Jan  in  with  33  to  get 
and  Evan  not  out  84. 

But  they  might  have  spared  the  doomed  wretch  the 
tremendous  cheering  that  greeted  his  supposed  resurrection 
from  the  sick-room  to  which — obviously — his  heroic  efforts 
of  the  morning  had  brought  him.  It  took  Evan  to  counter- 
act the  irony  of  that  reception  with  a  little  dose  on  his 
own  account. 

"Keep  your  end  up,"  whispered  Evan,  coming  out  to 
meet  the  captain  a  few  yards  from  the  pitch,  "and  I  can 
get  them.  Swallow's  off  the  spot  and  the  rest  are  pifflers. 
Keep  up  your  end  and  leave  the  runs  to  me. " 

It  was  the  tone  of  pure  injunction,  from  the  one  who 
might  have  been  captain  to  his  last  hope.  But  that 
refinement  was  lost  on  Jan;  he  could  only  stare  at  the 
cool  yet  heated  face,  all  eagerness  and  confidence,  as 
though  nothing  whatever  had  been  happening  off  the 
ground.  And  his  stare  did  draw  a  change  of  look — a  swift 
unspoken  question — the  least  little  cloud,  that  vanished  at 
Jan's  reply. 


310  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"It's  all  right,"  said  Jan,  oracularly.  "You  won't  be 
bothered  any  more!" 

"Good  man!"  said  Evan.  "Then  only  keep  your 
end  up,  and  we'll  have  the  fun  of  a  lifetime  between  usi" 

Jan  nodded  as  he  went  to  the  crease;  really  the  fellow 
had  done  him  good.  And  in  yet  another  little  thing  the 
Fates  were  kind;  he  had  not  to  take  the  next  ball,  and 
Evan  took  care  to  make  a  single  off  the  last  one  of  the 
over,  which  gave  the  newcomer  a  good  look  at  both  bowlers 
before  being  called  upon  to  play  a  ball. 

But  then  it  was  A.  G.  Swallow  whom  he  had  to  face; 
and,  in  spite  of  Evan's  expert  testimony  to  the  contrary, 
that  great  cricketer  certainly  looked  as  full  of  wisdom, 
wiles,  and  genial  malice  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat. 

A.  G.  Swallow  took  his  rhythmical  little  ball-room 
amble  of  a  run,  threw  his  left  shoulder  down,  heaved  his 
right  arm  up,  and  flicked  finger  and  thumb  together  as 
though  the  departing  ball  were  a  pinch  of  snuff.  I.  T. 
Rutter — one  of  the  many  left-hand  bowlers  who  bat  right, 
it  is  now  worth  while  to  state — watched  its  high  trajectory 
with  terror  tempered  by  a  bowler's  knowledge  of  the  kind 
of  break  put  on.  He  thought  it  was  never  going  to  pitch, 
but  when  it  did — well  to  the  off — he  scrambled  in  front 
of  his  wicket  and  played  the  thing  somehow  with  bat  and 
pads  combined.  But  A.  G.  Swallow  awaited  the  ball's 
return  with  a  smile  of  settled  sweetness,  and  E.  Devereux 
had  frowned. 

The  next  ball  flew  higher,  with  even  more  spin,  but 
broke  so  much  from  leg  as  to  beat  everything  except 
Stratten's  hands  behind  the  sticks.  But  Jan  had  not 
moved  out  of  his  ground;  he  had  simply  stood  there  and 
been  shot  at,  yet  already  he  was  beginning  to  perspire. 
Two  balls  and  two  such  escapes  were  enough  to  upset 
anybody's  nerve;   and  now,  of  course,  Jan  knew  enough 


CLOSE  OF  PLAY  311 

about  batting  to  know  what  a  bad  bat  he  was,  and  the 
knowledge  often  made  him  worse  still.  He  had  just  one 
point:  as  a  bowler  he  would  put  himself  in  the  bowler's 
place  and  consider  what  he  himself  would  try  next  if  he 
were  bowling. 

Now  perhaps  the  finest  feature  of  Swallow's  slow 
bowling  was  the  fast  one  that  he  could  send  down,  when 
he  liked,  without  perceptible  change  of  action;  but  the 
other  good  bowler  rightly  guessed  that  this  fast  ball  was 
coming  now,  was  more  than  ready  for  it,  let  go  early 
and  with  all  his  might,  and  happened  to  time  it  to  perfec- 
tion. It  went  off  his  bat  like  a  lawn-tennis  ball  from  a 
tight  racket,  flew  high  and  square  (though  really  intended 
for  an  on  drive),  and  came  down  on  the  pavilion  roof  with 
a  heavenly  crash. 

The  school  made  music,  too;  but  Evan  Devereux 
looked  distinctly  disturbed,  and  indeed  it  was  a  good 
thing  there  was  not  another  ball  in  the  over.  A.  G. 
Swallow  did  not  like  being  hit;  it  was  his  only  foible; 
but  to  hit  him  half  by  accident  was  to  expose  one's  wicket 
to  all  the  knavish  tricks  that  could  possibly  be  combined 
and  concentrated  in  the  very  next  delivery. 

Now,  however,  Evan  had  his  turn  again,  and  picked 
five  more  runs  off  three  very  moderate  balls  from  the 
vigorous  Whitfield;  the  fourth  did  not  defeat  Jan,  and 
Evan  had  Swallow's  next  over.  He  played  it  like  a  pro- 
fessional, but  ran  rather  a  sharp  single  off  the  last  ball, 
and  in  short  proceeded  to  "nurse"  the  bowling  as  though 
his  partner  had  not  made  25  not  out  in  the  first  innings 
and  already  hit  a  sixer  in  his  second. 

Jan  did  not  resent  this  in  the  least.  The  height  of  his 
own  momentary  ambition  was  simply  to  stay  there  until 
the  runs  were  made;  the  next  essential  was  for  Evan  to 
achieve  his  century,  but  the  larger  hope  involved  that 


312  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

consummation,  and  at  this  rate  he  would  not  be  very  long 
about  it.  To  Jan  his  performance  was  a  composite  revela- 
tion of  character  and  capacity.  Surely  it  was  not  Evan 
Devereux  batting  at  all,  but  a  higher  order  of  cricketer  in 
Evan's  image,  an  altogether  stronger  soul  in  his  skin  I 
Even  that  looked  different,  so  fiery  red  and  yet  so  free 
from  the  nervous  perspiration  welling  from  Jan's  pores; 
surely  some  sheer  enchantment  had  quickened  hand  and 
foot,  and  sharpened  an  eye  that  looked  abnormally  bright 
at  twenty  yards! 

So  thought  Jan  at  the  other  end;  and  he  wondered  if 
the  original  stimulus  could  have  been  the  very  weight  of 
an  anxiety  greater  than  any  connected  with  the  game;  but 
he  entertained  these  searching  speculations  almost  un- 
awares, and  alongside  all  manner  of  impressions,  visions 
and  reminiscences,  of  a  still  more  intimate  character. 
The  truth  was  that  Jan  himself  was  in  a  rarefied  atmos- 
phere, out  there  on  the  pitch,  seeing  and  doing  things  for 
the  last  time,  and  somehow  more  vividly  and  with  greater 
zest  than  he  had  ever  seen  or  done  such  things  before. 

Though  he  had  played  upon  it  literally  hundreds  of 
times,  never  until  to-day  had  he  seen  what  a  beautiful 
ground  the  Upper  really  was.  On  three  sides  a  smiling 
land  fell  away  in  fine  slopes  from  the  very  boundary,  as 
though  a  hill- top  had  been  sliced  off  to  make  the  field;  on 
those  three  sides  j'ou  could  see  for  miles,  and  they  were 
miles  of  grazing  country  checkered  with  hedges,  and  of 
blue  distance  blotted  with  trees.  But  even  as  a  cricket- 
field  Jan  felt  that  he  had  never  before  appreciated  his  dear 
Upper  as  he  ought.  It  lay  so  high  that  at  one  end  the 
batsman  stood  in  position  against  the  sky  from  the  pads 
upwards,  and  the  empyrean  was  the  screen  behind  the 
bowler's  arm. 

Of  course  these  fresh  features  of  a  familiar  scene  were 


CLOSE  OF  PLAY  313 

due  more  to  mental  exaltation  than  to  the  first  perfect  day 
of  the  term;  but  they  owed  little  or  nothing  to  the  con- 
scientious sentimentality  of  a  farewell  appearance.  Jan 
was  a  great  deal  too  excited  to  think  of  anything  but  the 
ball  while  the  ball  was  in  play.  But  between  the  overs 
the  spectres  of  the  early  afternoon  were  at  his  elbow,  and 
in  one  such  pause  he  espied  Haigh  in  the  flesh  watching 
from  the  ring. 

Yes!  There  was  Haigh  freshly  groomed,  in  a  clean 
collar  and  another  suit  of  clothes,  the  grey  hair  brushed 
back  from  his  pink  temples,  but  his  mouth  inexorably 
shut  on  the  tidings  it  was  soon  to  utter.  Decent  of  Haigh 
to  wait  until  the  match  was  lost  or  won;  but  then  Haigh 
resembled  the  Upper  inasmuch  as  Jan  already  liked  every- 
thing about  him  better  than  he  had  ever  done  before.  In 
front  of  the  pavilion,  in  tall  hat,  frock-coat  and  white 
cravat,  sat  splendid  little  old  Jerry  himself,  that  flogging 
judge  of  other  days,  soon  to  assume  the  black  cap  at 
last,  but  still  ignorant  of  the  capital  offence  committed, 
still  beaming  with  delight  and  pride  in  a  glorious  finish. 
Elsewhere  a  triangle  of  familiar  faces  made  themselves 
seen  and  heard;  its  apex  was  gaunt  old  Heriot,  who  in 
his  innocence  had  bawled  a  salvo  for  the  sixer;  and  the 
gay  old  dog  on  his  right  was  his  friend  Major  Mangles, 
while  Oxford  had  already  turned  the  austere  Crabtree  into 
the  gay  young  dog  on  his  left. 

Jan  wondered  what  Crabtree  would  think — and  then 
what  the  Major  was  saying  as  he  poked  Bob  Heriot  in  the 
ribs.  He  soon  saw  what  they  were  saying;  all  that 
Cambridge  and  Lord's  had  left  of  the  original  Charles 
Cave  was  going  on  to  bowl  instead  of  Swallow,  and  those 
three  tense  faces  on  the  boundary  had  relaxed  in  esoteric 
laughter.  But  it  was  Jan  who  had  to  play  Cave's  over, 
and  it  was  almost  worthy  of  the  Cantab's  youth  three 


314  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

years  ago.  Jan,  however,  was  almost  at  home  by  this 
time;  all  four  balls  found  the  middle  of  his  bat;  and  then 
the  public-spirited  policy  of  A.  G.  Swallow  dictated  an 
audacious  move. 

Of  course  he  must  know  what  he  was  doing,  for  he 
had  led  a  first-class  county  in  his  day,  and  had  never 
been  the  captain  to  take  himself  off  without  reason.  No 
doubt  he  understood  the  value  of  a  double  change;  but 
was  it  really  wise  to  put  on  Swiller  Wilman  at  Whitfield's 
end  with  lobs  when  only  15  runs  were  wanted  to  win  the 
match?  Pavilion  critics  had  their  oracular  doubts  about 
it;  old  judges  on  the  rugs  had  none  at  all,  but  gave  Dever- 
eux  a  couple  of  covers  for  the  winning  hit;  and  only 
Evan  himself  betrayed  a  certain  apprehension  as  he 
crossed  beckoning  to  Jan  before  the  lobs  began. 

"Have  you  any  idea  how  many  I've  got?"  he  asked 
below  his  breath.  The  second  hundred  had  just  gone  up 
to  loud  applause. 

"  I  can  tell  you  to  a  run  if  you  want  to  know. " 

"I'm  asking  you." 

"You've  made  94." 

"Rot!" 

"You  have.  You'd  made  84  when  I  came  in.  I've 
counted  your  runs  since  then. " 

"I'd  no  idea  it  was  nearly  so  many  I" 

"And  I  didn't  mean  to  tell  you." 

There  Jan  had  been  quite  right,  but  it  was  not  so 
tactful  to  remind  the  batsman  of  every  batsman's  anxiety 
on  nearing  the  century.  Evan,  to  be  sure,  repudiated  the 
faint  suggestion  with  some  asperity;  but  his  very  lips 
looked  redder  than  before. 

"Well,  don't  you  get  out  off  him,"  said  Evan,  con- 
sequentially. 

"I'll  try  not  to.     Let's  both  follow  the  rule,  eh?" 


CLOSE  OF  PLAY  315 

"What  rule?" 

"Dudley  Helton's  for  lobs:  a  single  off  every  ball, 
never  more  and  never  less,  and  nothing  whatever  on  the 
half-volley." 

"Oh,  be  blowed!"  said  Evan.  "We've  been  going 
far  too  slow  these  last  few  overs  as  it  is. " 

Accordingly  he  hit  the  first  lob  just  over  mid-on's  head 
for  three,  and  Jan  got  his  single  off  the  next,  but  off  both 
of  the  next  two  balls  Evan  was  very  nearly  out  for  97  and 
the  match  lost  by  10  runs. 

On  the  second  occasion  even  George  Grimwood 
gratuitously  conceded  that  off  a  lob  a  fraction  faster  Mr. 
Devereux  would  indeed  have  been  stumped;  as  it  was  he 
had  only  just  got  back  in  time.  This  explanation  was 
not  acknowledged  by  Mr.  Stratten,  whose  vain  appeal 
had  been  echoed  by  half  the  field.  The  nice  fellow 
seemed  to  have  lost  all  his  looks  as  he  crossed  to  the 
other  end. 

The  next  incident  was  a  full-pitch  to  leg  from  Charles 
Cave  and  a  fourer  to  Jan  Rutter.  That  made  6  to  tie  and 
7  to  win,  but  only  about  another  hit  to  Jan  if  Evan  was 
to  get  his  century.  Jan  thought  of  that  as  he  played  hard 
forward  to  the  next  ball  but  one,  and  felt  it  leap  and 
heard  it  hiss  through  the  covers;  for  even  his  old  bat  was 
driving  as  it  had  never  done  before;  but  a  delightful 
deep-field  sprinter  just  saved  the  boundary,  and  Jan 
would  not  risk  the  more  than  possible  third  run. 

At  this  stage  only  5  runs  were  wanted  to  win  the 
match.  And  Evan  Devereux,  within  3  of  every  cricketer's 
ambition,  again  faced  the  merry  underhand  bowler  against 
whom  he  had  shaped  so  precariously  the  over  before 
last. 

Geoi^e  Grimwood  might  have  been  seen  shifting  from 
foot  to  foot,  and  jingling  pence  in  his  accomplished  palm. 


316  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Another  of  those  near  things  was  not  wanted  this  over, 
with  the  whole  match  hanging  to  it,  and  Mr.  Stratten 
still  looking  like  that.  .  .  . 

A  bit  better,  was  that!  A  nice  two  for  Mr.  Devereux 
to  the  unprotected  off — no! — blessed  if  they  aren't  run- 
ning again.  They  must  be  daft;  one  of  them'U  be  out, 
one  of  'em  must  be!  No — a  bad  return — but  Mr.  Cave 
has  it  now.  How  beautifully  this  gentleman  always 
throws!  You  wouldn't  think  it  of  him,  to  see  him  cross- 
ing over,  or  even  batting  or  bowling;  he's  got  a  return  like 
a  young  cannon,  and  here  it  comes! 

No  umpire  will  be  able  to  give  this  in;  there's  Mr. 
Rutter  a  good  two  yards  down  the  pitch,  legging  it  for 
dear  life;  and  here  comes  the  ball  like  a  bullet.  He's 
out  if  it  doesn't  miss  the  wicket  after  all ;  but  it  does  miss 
it,  by  a  coat  of  varnish,  and  ricochets  to  the  boundary 
for  other  four,  that  win  the  match  for  the  school,  the 
ultimate  honour  of  three  figures,  for  Evan  Devereux, 
and  peace  beyond  this  racket  for  George  Grimwood. 

Over  the  ground  swarm  the  whole  school  like  a  small 
Surrey  crowd,  but  Evan  and  Jan  have  been  too  quick 
for  them;  they  break  through  the  swift  outer  fringe; 
and  it  is  not  Lord's  or  the  Oval  after  all.  Nobody  cares 
so  much  who  wins  this  match,  it's  the  magnificent  finish 
that  matters  and  will  matter  while  the  school  exists. 

So  the  dense  mass  before  the  pavilion  parts  in  two, 
and  the  smiling  Old  Boys  march  through  the  lane;  but 
it  does  not  close  up  again  until  Rutter  has  come  out  and 
given  Devereux  his  colours  in  the  dear  old  way,  by  taking 
the  blue  sash  from  his  own  waist  and  tying  it  round  that 
of  his  friend. 

Did  somebody  say  that  Devereux  was  blubbing  from 
excitement?  It  was  not  the  case;  but  nobody  was 
watching  Jan. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE  EXTREME  PENALTY 

It  is  not  to  be  pretended  that  a  cloud  of  live  young  eye- 
witnesses make  quite  so  much  of  these  excitements  as 
the  historian  old  or  young;  they  may  yell  themselves 
hoarse  in  front  of  the  pavilion,  but  the  beads  are  not 
wiped  from  their  heroes'  brows  before  the  question  is, 
"What  shall  we  do  till  lock-up?"  It  is  only  the  Eleven 
who  want  to  talk  it  all  over  in  that  sanctum  of  swelldom, 
the  back  room  at  Maltby's,  and  only  its  latest  member 
who  has  a  tremendous  telegram  to  send  to  his  people 
first.  And  then  it  so  happens  that  he  does  not  join  them; 
neither  does  the  Captain  of  Cricket,  though  for  once  in  his 
captaincy  he  would  be  really  welcome. 

Evan  had  retired  to  his  house,  and  not  a  bit  as  though 
the  school  belonged  to  him,  but  with  curiously  little  of 
the  habitual  strut  (now  that  he  had  something  to  strut 
about)  in  his  almost  unsteady  gait.  Jan,  too,  was  en- 
sconced in  Heriot's,  and  quite  unnecessarily  prepared  to 
dodge  Evan  at  any  moment,  or  to  protect  himself  with  a 
third  person  if  run  to  ground.  The  third  person  was 
naturally  Chips  Carpenter,  who  had  gone  mad  on  the 
ground,  and  was  now  working  off  the  fit  in  a  parody  of 
"The  Battle  of  Blenheim"  in  place  of  an  ordinary  prose 
report  of  the  latest  and  most  famous  of  all  victories. 

Though  there  was  no  sign  of  Evan,  and  after  an  hour 
317 


318  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

or  so  little  likelihood  of  his  appearance,  still  Jan  kept 
dodging  in  and  out  of  the  Editor's  study,  like  an  uneasy 
spirit.  And  once  he  remarked  that  there  was  an  awful 
row  in  the  lower  passage,  apparently  suggesting  that 
Chips  ought  to  go  down  and  quell  it.  But  Chips  had 
never  been  a  Crabtree  in  the  house,  and  at  present  he 
was  too  deep  in  his  rhyming  dictionary  to  hear  either  the 
row  or  Jan. 

Lock-up  at  last.  The  little  block  of  ivy-mantled 
studies  became  a  manufactory  of  proses  and  verses,  all 
Latin  but  Chips's,  and  the  Greek  iambics  of  others  high 
up  in  the  school,  and  all  but  the  English  effort  to  be 
signed  by  Mr.  Heriot  after  prayers  that  night  or  first 
diing  in  the  morning,  to  show  that  the  Sabbath  had  not 
been  broken  by  secular  composition.  Nine  o'clock  and 
prayers  were  actually  approaching;  and  yet  Jan  still  sat, 
or  stood  about,  unmolested  in  his  disorderly  study;  and 
yet  the  heavens  had  not  fallen,  or  earth  trembled  with 
the  wrath  of  Heriot  or  anybody  else.  Could  it  be  that 
for  the  second  time  Jan  was  to  be  let  off  by  the  soft- 
heartedness  of  a  master  who  knew  enough  to  hang 
him? 

Hardly!  Haigh,  of  all  men!  Yet  he  had  been  most 
awfully  decent  about  it  all;  it  was  a  revelation  to  Jan 
that  there  was  so  much  common  decency  after  all  in  his 
oldest  enemy.  .  .  . 

Now  he  would  soon  know.  Hark  at  the  old  harsh 
bell,  rung  by  Morgan  outside  the  hall,  across  the  quad  I 

Prayers. 

Jan  had  scarcely  expected  to  go  in  to  prayers  again, 
and  as  he  went  he  remembered  his  first  impressions  of 
the  function  at  the  beginning  of  his  first  term.  He 
remembered  the  small  boy  standing  sentinel  in  the 
flagged  passage  leading  to  the  green-baize  door,  and  all 


THE  EXTREME  PENALTY     319 

the  fellows  armed  with  hymn-books  and  chatting  mer- 
rily in  their  places  at  table.  That  small  boy  was  a  big 
fellow  at  the  Sixth  Form  table  now,  and  the  chat  was 
more  animated  but  less  merry  than  it  had  seemed  to  Jan 
then.  Something  was  in  the  air  already.  Could  it  have 
leaked  out  before  the  sword  descended?  No;  it  must  be 
something  else.  Everybody  was  eager  to  tell  him  about 
it,  as  he  repeated  ancient  history  by  coming  in  almost 
last. 

"  Have  you  heard  about  Devereux  ?  " 

"Have  you  heard,  Rutter?" 

"  Haven't  you  heard  ?  '* 

His  heart  missed  a  beat. 

"No.    What?" 

"He's  down  with  measles!" 

"That  all!"  exclaimed  Jan,  tingling  with  returning 
animation. 

If  his  own  downfall  had  been  in  vain ! 

"  It's  bad  enough,"  said  the  big  fellow  who  had  stood 
sentinel  four  years  ago.  "They  say  he  must  have  had 
them  on  him  when  he  was  in,  and  the  whole  thing  may 
make  him  jolly  bad." 

"Who  says  so?" 

"Morgan;  he's  just  heard  it." 

Poverty  of  detail  was  eked  out  by  fertile  speculation. 
Jan  was  hardly  listening;  he  could  not  help  considering 
how  far  this  new  catastrophe  would  affect  himself.  Evan 
was  as  strong  as  a  horse,  and  that  moreover  with  the 
strength  which  had  never  been  outgrown;  besides,  he 
would  have  his  magnificent  century  to  look  back  upon 
from  his  pillow.  That  was  enough  to  see  anybody  through 
anything.  And  now  there  would  be  no  fear  of  mental 
compHcation,  no  question  of  his  coming  forward  and 
owning  up:  for  who  was  going  to  carry  a  school  scandal 


320  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

into  the  Sanatorium,  even  if  the  school  ever  learnt  the 
rights  ? 

And  yet  somehow  Jan  felt  as  though  a  loophole  had 
been  stopped  at  the  back  of  his  brain;  and  an  inquiry 
within  made  him  ashamed  to  discover  what  the  loophole 
had  been.  Evan  would  have  found  out,  and  never  have 
let  him  bear  the  brunt;  in  the  end  Evan's  honesty  would 
have  saved  them  both,  because  nothing  paid  like  honesty 
with  dear  old  Thrale.  That  was  what  Jan  saw,  now  that 
seeing  it  could  only  make  him  feel  a  beast!  It  was  al- 
most a  relief  to  realise  that  Evan  would  still  be  ruined  if 
the  truth  leaked  out  through  other  lips,  and  that  a  friend's 
were  thus  sealed  closer  than  before. 

The  Heriots  were  very  late  in  coming  in.  Why  was 
that  ?  But  at  last  the  sentinel  showed  an  important  face, 
fulminating  "Hush!"  And  sister  and  brother  entered  in 
the  usual  silence. 

Miss  Heriot  took  her  place  at  the  piano  under  the 
shelf  bearing  the  now  solitary  cup  of  which  Jan  might 
almost  be  described  as  the  solitary  winner;  at  any  rate 
the  present  house  eleven  consisted,  like  the  historic  Har- 
row eleven,  of  Rutter  "and  ten  others."  The  ten,  nay, 
the  thirty  others  then  present  could  not  have  guessed  a 
tenth  or  a  thirtieth  part  of  all  that  was  in  their  bowler's 
mind  that  night. 

Mr.  or  Miss  Heriot  always  chose  a  good  hymn;  to- 
night it  was  No.  22,  Ancient  and  Modern;  a  simple 
thing,  and  only  appropriate  to  the  time  of  year,  but  still 
rather  a  favourite  of  Jan's.  He  found  himself  bray- 
ing out  the  air  from  the  top  of  the  Sixth  Form  table,  as 
though  nothing  could  happen  to  him,  while  Chips  Car- 
penter lorded  it  like  every  captain  of  that  house,  with 
his  back  to  the  empty  grate,  and  fondly  imagined  that  he 
was  singing  bass.    Neitlier  friend  and  contemporary  would 


THE  EXTREME  PENALTY  321 

ever  have  done  much  credit  to  the  most  musical  school 
in  England,  and  now  only  one  of  them  would  be  able  to 
go  about  saying  that  he  had  ever  been  there! 

Unless  .  .  .  and  there  was  no  telling  from  Heriot's 
voice. 

It  was  the  same  unaffected,  manly  voice  which  had  ap- 
pealed to  Jan  on  his  very  first  night  in  hall;  the  prayers 
were  the  same,  a  characteristic  selection  only  used  in  that 
house;  but  whereas  a  few  phrases  had  struck  Jan  even 
on  that  occasion,  now  he  knew  them  all  off  by  heart,  but 
listened  with  no  less  care  in  order  to  remember  them  if 
possible  at  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

"  O  Lord,  Who  knowest  our  peculiar  temptations  here, 
help  us  by  Thy  Holy  Spirit  to  struggle  against  them. 
Save  us  from  being  ashamed  of  Thee  and  of  our  duty. 
Save  us  from  the  base  and  degrading  fear  of  one  an- 
other. .  .  ."  Jan  hoped  he  had  stood  up  sufficiently  to 
the  other  old  choices  in  the  Eleven;  he  could  not  help 
an  ungodly  feeling  that  he  had;  but  he  had  been  very 
down  on  his  luck  earlier  in  the  term. 

**  Grant,  O  Lord,  that  we  may  always  remember  that 
our  bodies  are  the  temple  of  the  living  God,  and  that  we 
may  not  pollute  them  by  evil  thoughts  or  evil  words.  .  .  . 
Give  us  grace  never  to  approve  or  by  consent  to  sanction 
in  others  what  our  consciences  tell  us  is  wrong,  but  to 
reprove  it  either  by  word  or  by  silence.  Let  us  never 
ourselves  act  the  part  of  tempter  to  others,  never  place  a 
stumbling-block  in  our  brother's  way,  or  offend  any  of  our 
companions,  for  Jesus  Christ's  sake.    Amen." 

Well,  he  had  never  played  the  tempter  or  placed 
stumbling-blocks,  whatever  else  he  had  done;  it  was  not 
for  that  that  he  would  have  to  go;  but  he  was  not  so  sure 
about  evil  words.  He  had  said  some  things,  sometimes, 
which  might  have  earned  him  his  now  imminent  fate,  if 


322  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

they  had  reached  some  ears;  so  perhaps  he  had  little  to 
complain  about  after  all.  Not  that  foul  language  had  ever 
been  his  habit;  but  he  had  never  been  so  particular  as 
Chips,  for  example,  now  so  devout  in  the  Lord's  Prayer  at 
the  other  end  of  the  Sixth  Form  table.  Old  Chips  in  his 
early  days  had  gone  to  the  foolhardy  and  (in  him)  futile 
length  of  reproof  by  word;  even  now  he  was  rising  from 
his  knees  as  though  he  had  been  really  praying;  but  Jan 
had  only  been  thinking  his  own  thoughts,  though  kneeling 
there  without  doubt  for  the  last  time. 

And  yet  a  second  moment's  doubt  did  thrill  him  as 
Heriot  took  up  his  usual  stand  in  front  of  the  grate,  and 
some  of  the  fellows  made  a  dash  for  milk  and  dog-rocks  at 
the  bottom  of  the  long  table,  but  more  clustered  round 
the  fireplace  to  hear  Heriot  and  Jan  discuss  the  match. 
They  actually  did  discuss  it  for  a  minute  or  two;  but  Heriot 
was  dry  as  tinder  in  spite  of  his  intentions;  and  when  he 
suddenly  announced  that  he  would  sign  all  verses  in  the 
morning,  but  would  just  like  to  speak  to  Rutter  for  a 
minute,  Jan  followed  him  through  into  the  private  part 
with  a  stabbing  conviction  that  all  was  over  with  him. 

"I've  heard  Mr.  Haigh's  story,"  said  Heriot  very 
coldly  in  his  study.    "  Do  you  wish  me  to  hear  yours  ?  " 

"No,  sir." 

Jan  did  not  wince  at  Heriot's  tone,  but  Heriot  did  at 
his.  The  one  was  to  be  expected,  the  other  almost  brazen 
in  its  unblushing  alacrity. 

"  You  have  nothing  whatever  to  say  for  yourself,  after 
all  these  years,  after " 

Heriot  pulled  himself  up — as  on  his  haunches — with  a 
jerk  of  the  grizzled  head  and  a  fierce  flash  of  the  glasses. 

"But  from  all  I  hear  I'm  not  surprised,"  he  added 
with  bitter  significance.  "I  find  I've  been  mistaken  in 
you  all  along." 


THE  EXTREME  PENALTY  323 

Yet  Jan  did  not  see  his  meaning  at  the  time,  and 
the  bitterness  only  enabled  him  to  preserve  apparent 
insensibility. 

"There's  nothing  to  say,  sir.  I  was  shamming 
right  enough,  and  I  suppose  Mr.  Haigh  has  told  you 
why." 

"He  has,  indeed!  The  matter  has  also  been  re- 
ported to  the  Head  Master,  and  he  wishes  to  see  you  at 
once.  I  need  hardly  warn  you  what  to  expect,  I  should 
think." 

"  No,  sir.    I  expect  to  go." 

"  Evidently  you  won't  be  sorry,  so  I  shan't  waste  any 
sympathy  upon  you.  But  I  must  say  I  think  you  might 
have  thought  of  the  house!" 

The  matter  had  not  presented  itself  in  that  light  to 
Jan;  now  that  it  did,  he  felt  with  Heriot  on  the  spot,  and 
did  not  perceive  an  unworthy  although  most  human  ele- 
ment in  the  man's  outlook.  The  house  would  not  be 
ruined  for  life.  On  the  other  hand,  in  his  determination 
to  put  a  stiff  lip  on  every  phase  of  his  downfall,  and 
beyond  all  things  not  to  betray  himself  by  ever  breaking 
down,  Jan  had  over-acted  like  most  unskilled  histrions, 
and  had  already  created  an  impression  of  coarse  bravado 
on  a  mind  prepared  to  stretch  any  possible  point  in  his 
favour. 

But  it  was  no  time  to  think  about  the  accomplished 
interview  with  Bob  Heriot,  with  truly  terrific  retribution 
even  now  awaiting  him  at  the  hands  of  the  redoubtable 
old  Jerry.  About  a  hundred  yards  of  the  soft  summer 
night,  and  he  would  stand  in  that  awful  presence  for 
the  last  time.  And  it  was  all  very  well  for  Jan  to  call 
him  "old  Jerry"  in  his  heart  up  to  the  last,  and  to  ask 
himself  what  there  was,  after  all,  to  fear  so  acutely  from  a 
man  of  nearly  seventy  who  could  not  eat  him;  his  heart 


324  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

quaked  none  the  less,  and  if  he  had  been  obliged  to 
answer  himself  it  would  have  been  with  a  trembling  lip. 

He  dared  to  dawdle  on  the  way,  rehearsing  his  scanty 
past  relations  with  the  great  little  old  man.  There  was 
the  time  when  he  was  nearly  flogged,  after  the  Abinger 
affair.  Well,  the  old  man  might  have  been  far  more 
severe  than  he  really  was  on  that  occasion.  There  was 
that  other  early  scene  when  Jan  was  told  that  another 
time  he  would  not  sit  down  so  comfortably,  and  Chips's 
story  about  his  friend  Olympus.  It  was  all  grim  humour 
that  appealed  to  this  delinquent;  but  it  was  a  humour 
that  became  terrible  when  the  whole  school  were  arraigned 
and  held  responsible  for  some  individual  vileness,  pro- 
nounced inconceivable  in  a  really  sound  community;  for 
then  they  were  all  dogs  and  curs  together,  and,  that  de- 
monstrated, it  was  "Dogs,  go  to  your  kennels!"  And  go 
they  would,  feeling  beaten  mongrels  every  one;  never 
laughing  at  the  odd  old  man,  never  even  reviling  him; 
often  loving  but  always  fearing  him. 

Jan  feared  him  now  the  more  because  of  late  especially 
he  had  been  learning  to  love  Mr.  Thrale.  Though  still 
only  in  the  Lower  Sixth,  as  Captain  of  Cricket  he  had 
come  in  for  sundry  ex  officio  honours,  in  the  shape  of  invi- 
tations to  breakfast  and  audiences  formal  and  informal. 
On  all  such  occasions  Jan  had  been  embarrassed  and  yet 
braced,  puzzled  by  parables  but  enlightened  in  flashes, 
stimulated  in  soul  and  sinew  but  awed  from  skin  to  core; 
and  now  the  awe  was  undiluted,  crude,  and  overwhelming. 
He  felt  that  every  word  from  that  trenchant  tongue  would 
leave  a  scar  for  life,  and  the  scorn  in  those  old  eyes  haunt 
him  to  his  grave. 

Sub-consciously  he  was  stUl  thinking  of  the  judge  and 
executioner  in  his  gown  of  office,  on  his  carved  judgment 
seat,  as  the  day's  crop  of  petty  offenders  found  and  faced 


THE  EXTREME  PENALTY  325 

him  after  twelve.  In  his  library  Jan  had  seldom  before 
set  foot,  never  with  the  seeing  eye  that  he  brought  to- 
night; and  the  smallness  and  simplicity  of  it  struck  him 
through  all  his  tremors  when  the  servant  had  shown  him 
in.  It  was  not  so  very  much  larger  than  the  large  studies 
at  Heriot's.  Only  a  gangway  of  floor  surrounded  a  great 
desk  in  a  litter  after  Jan's  own  heart;  garden  smells  came 
through  an  open  lattice,  and  with  them  a  maze  of  midges 
to  dance  round  the  one  lamp  set  amid  the  litter;  and  in 
the  light  of  that  lamp,  a  pale  face  framed  in  silvery  hair, 
wide  eyes  filled  with  heart-broken  disgust,  and  a  mouth 
that  might  have  been  closed  for  ever. 

At  last  it  came  to  mobile  life,  and  Jan  heard  in 
strangely  dispassionate  tones  a  brief  recital  of  all  that  had 
been  heard  and  seen  of  his  proceedings  in  the  fatal  hour 
when  pretended  illness  kept  him  from  the  match.  Again 
he  was  asked  if  he  had  anything  to  challenge  or  to  add; 
for  it  was  Heriot's  question  in  other  words,  and  Jan  had 
no  new  answer;  but  this  time  he  could  only  shake  a 
bowed  head  humbly,  as  he  had  bent  it  in  acknowledgment 
of  his  own  writing  on  the  envelope.  Jerry  was  far  less 
fierce  than  he  had  expected,  but  a  hundredfold  more  ter- 
rible in  his  pale  grief  and  scorn.  Jan  felt  an  even  sorrier 
and  meaner  figure  than  on  coming  up  for  judgment  after 
the  Abinger  affair;  so  far  from  the  support  of  secret  he- 
roics, it  was  impossible  to  stand  in  the  white  light  of  that 
nobly  reproachful  countenance,  and  even  to  remember 
that  he  was  not  altogether  the  vile  thing  he  seemed. 

"  If  there  is  one  form  of  treachery  worse  than  another," 
said  Mr.  Thrale, "  it  is  treachery  in  high  places.  The  office 
that  you  have  occupied,  Rutter,  is  rightly  or  wrongly  a 
high  one  in  this  school;  but  you  have  dragged  it  in  the 
dust,  and  our  honour  stands  above  our  cricket.  On  the 
eve  of  our  school  matches,  when  we  had  a  right  to  look  to 


326  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

you  to  keep  our  flag  flying,  you  have  betrayed  your  trust 
and  forfeited  your  post  and  your  existence  here;  but  if  it 
were  the  end  of  cricket  in  this  school,  I  would  not  keep 
you  another  day." 

Jan  looked  up  suddenly. 

"  Am  I  to  go  on  a  Sunday,  sir  ?  " 

The  thought  of  his  return  to  the  Norfolk  rectory,  in 
this  dire  disgrace,  had  taken  sudden  and  most  poignant 
shape.  On  a  Sunday  it  would  be  too  awful,  with  the 
somnolent  yet  captious  household  in  a  state  of  either  com- 
placent indolence  or  sanctified  fuss,  assimilating  sirloin  or 
starting  for  church,  according  to  the  hour  of  his  arrival. 

Mr.  Thrale  seemed  already  to  have  taken  this  into 
humane  consideration,  for  he  promptly  replied:  "You  will 
remain  till  Monday;  meanwhile  you  are  to  consider  your- 
self a  prisoner  on  parole,  and  mix  no  more  in  the  society 
for  which  you  have  shown  yourself  unfit.  So  far  as  this 
school  goes  you  are  condemned  to  death  for  lying  betrayal 
and  mock-manly  meanness.  Murder  will  out,  Rutter,  but 
you  are  not  condemned  for  any  undiscovered  crime  of  the 
past.  Yet  if  it  is  true  that  you  ever  got  out  of  your  house 
at  night " 

Jan  could  not  meet  the  awful  mien  with  which  Mr. 
Thrale  here  made  dramatic  pause;  but  he  filled  it  by 
mumbling  that  it  was  quite  true,  he  had  got  out  once, 
over  two  years  ago. 

"Once,"  said  Mr.  Thrale,  "is  enough  to  deprive  you 
of  the  previous  good  character  that  might  otherwise  have 
been  taken  into  consideration.  I  do  not  say  it  could  have 
saved  you;  but  nothing  can  save  the  traitor  guilty  of  re- 
peated acts  of  treason.  A  certain  consideration  you  will 
receive  at  Mr.  Heriot's  hands,  by  his  special  request,  until 
you  go  on  Monday  morning.  And  that,  Rutter,  is  all  I 
have  to  say  to  you  as  Head  Master  of  this  school." 


THE  EXTREME  PENALTY  327 

Even  so  is  the  convicted  murderer  handed  over  to  the 
High  Sheriff  for  destruction;  but  just  as  other  judges 
soften  the  dread  language  of  the  law  with  more  human 
utterances  on  their  own  account,  so  before  he  was  done 
did  Mr.  Thrale  address  himself  to  Jan  as  man  to  man, 
merely  reversing  the  legal  order.  He  asked  the  boy  what 
he  was  going  to  do  in  life,  and  besought  him  not  to  look 
upon  his  whole  life  as  necessarily  ruined.  The  greater  the 
fall,  the  greater  the  merit  of  rising  again;  he  had  almost 
said,  and  he  would  say,  the  greater  the  sport  of  rising  I 
Jan  had  pulled  matches  out  of  the  fire;  let  him  take  life 
as  a  game,  bowl  out  the  Devil  that  was  in  him,  and  pull 
his  own  soul  out  of  Hell!  Here  he  enlarged  upon  the  lust 
of  drink,  bluntly  but  with  a  tender  breadth  of  understand- 
ing, as  a  snare  set  alike  for  the  just  and  the  unjust,  a  curse 
most  accursed  in  its  destruction  of  the  moral  fibre,  as  in 
this  very  case;  and  Jan  could  not  have  listened  more 
humbly  if  his  own  whole  body  and  soul  had  been  already 
undermined.  He  thought  he  saw  tears  in  the  old  man's 
eyes;  he  knew  he  had  them  in  his  own.  These  last  words 
of  earnest  exhortation,  beginning  as  they  did  between  man 
and  man,  went  on  and  finished  almost  as  between  father 
and  son,  with  a  handshake  and  "  God  guide  you ! "  There 
was  even  the  offer  of  a  letter  which,  while  not  glozing  the 
worst,  would  yet  say  those  other  things  that  could  still  be 
said,  and  might  stand  Jan  in  good  stead  if  he  were  man 
enough  to  show  it  in  Australia. 

But  meanwhile  he  had  been  expelled  from  school,  ex- 
pelled in  his  last  term,  when  Captain  of  Cricket,  and  on 
top  of  his  one  triumph  in  that  capacity.  And  on  his  way 
back  to  his  house,  Jan  stopped  in  the  starlit  street,  and 
what  do  you  think  he  did  ? 

He  laughed  aloud  as  he  suddenly  remembered  the 
actual  facts  of  the  case. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

"like   LUCIFER " 

Mr.  Heriot  himself  showed  Jan  to  his  room,  the  spare 
bedroom  on  the  private  side  of  the  house,  where  he  was  to 
remain  until  he  went.  All  his  belongings  had  been 
brought  down  from  dormitory,  and  some  few  already  from 
his  study.  The  bed  was  made  and  turned  down,  with 
clean  sheets  as  if  for  a  guest;  and  there  was  an  adjoining 
dressing-room  at  his  disposal,  with  the  gas  lit  and  hot 
water  placed  in  readiness  by  some  unenlightened  maid. 

This  led  Heriot  to  explain,  gruffly  enough,  the  special 
consideration  to  which  Mr.  Thrale  had  referred. 

"The  whole  thing's  a  secret  from  the  house  so  far, 
and  of  course  the  servants  don't  know  anything  about  it. 
They  probably  think  you're  suspected  of  measles,  not 
strongly  enough  for  the  Sanatorium  but  too  strongly  for 
the  sick-room  in  the  boys'  part.  I  shall  allow  that  im- 
pression to  prevail  until — as  long  as  you  remain." 

"Thank  you,  sir." 

"I  remember  better  days,  Rutter;  we  had  seen  a  good 
many  together  before  you  came  to  anything  like  this, 
I'm  quite  sure."  His  glasses  flashed.  "Yet  all  the 
time " 

He  stopped  himself  as  before,  turned  on  his  heel  and 
shut  a  window  which  he  had  opened  on  entering  the 
room.  And  now  Jan  grasped  what  it  was  that  his  house- 
master kept  remembering,  but  could  not  trust  himself  to 

328 


"LIKE  LUCIFER"  329 

mention.  And  the  mutual  constraint  made  the  prisoner 
thankful  when  he  was  bidden  an  abrupt  good-night,  and 
left  alone  at  last. 

Alone  in  the  condemned  cell,  or  rather  a  luxurious 
suite  of  cells!  The  luxury  was  an  irony  not  lost  on  Jan; 
he  was  as  much  alive  to  every  detail  of  his  environment  as 
he  had  been  towards  the  end  of  the  match.  And  the  grim 
humours  of  the  situation,  which  had  only  come  home  to 
him  since  his  interview  with  the  Head  Master,  were  still 
a  relief  after  the  deceptive  solemnity  of  that  ordeal.  He 
must  never  again  forget  that  he  was  guiltless.  That  made 
all  the  difference  in  the  world.  Would  he  have  been  able 
to  think  of  condemned  cells  if  he  had  deserved  to  be  in 
one,  or  of  the  portmanteau  he  now  discovered  in  the 
dressing-room,  lying  ready  to  be  packed,  as  the  open 
coffin  of  his  school  life  ? 

And  yet  it  was,  it  was! 

But  the  waking  night  was  a  long  succession  of  ob- 
stacles to  oblivion.  Forgotten  circumstances  came  back 
with  new  and  dolorous  significance;  this  began  when 
he  emptied  his  pockets  before  undressing,  and  missed 
his  watch.  It  was  the  first  night  in  all  his  schooldays 
that  he  had  been  without  the  small  gold  watch  which  had 
been  his  mother's  when  she  ran  away  from  home.  Again 
he  remembered  wondering  if  the  boys  would  laugh  at  him 
for  having  a  lady's  watch;  but  they  were  marvellously  de- 
cent about  some  things;  not  one  of  them  had  ever  made  a 
single  remark  about  it.  The  little  gold  watch  had  timed 
him  through  all  these  years,  and  the  first  time  he  left  it 
behind  him  he  came  to  grief.  It  was  only  in  the  studies; 
but  it  would  never  bring  his  luck  back  now. 

Then  there  was  that  pocketful  of  small  silver  and 
stray  gold.  Two  pounds  eighteen  and  sixpence,  he  ought 
to  make  it;   and  he  did.    The  amount  was  not  the  only 


330  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

point  about  the  money  that  he  recalled  in  lurid  flashes 
as  he  counted  it  all  out  upon  the  dressing-table.  He 
took  an  envelope  from  the  stationery  case  on  another 
table,  swept  all  the  coins  in  and  stuck  it  up  with  care. 
He  even  wrote  the  amount  outside,  then  dropped  the 
jingling  packet  into  a  drawer.  Soon  after  this  he  got  to 
bed  in  the  superfine  sheets  dedicated  to  guests;  of  course 
his  own  sheets  would  not  have  stretched  across  this  great 
bedstead;  and  yet  these  reminded  every  inch  of  him  where 
he  was,  every  hour  of  the  night. 

He  heard  them  all  struck  by  the  old  blue  monkey  of 
a  church  clock.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  heard  it 
like  this  since  his  removal  from  the  little  front  dormitory, 
his  first  year  in  the  Eleven.  It  was  strange  to  be  sleep- 
ing over  the  street  again,  listening  to  all  its  old  noises 
.  .  .  listening  .  .  .  listening  again  ...  at  last  listen- 
ing to  the  old  harsh  bell! 

That  was  the  worst  noise  of  all;  for  he  must  have 
been  asleep,  in  spite  of  everything;  he  only  really  woke 
up  standing  on  the  soft,  spacious,  unfamiliar  floor.  The 
spare  bedroom  was  full  of  summer  sunshine.  The 
fine  weather  had  come  to  stay.  They  would  get  a  fast 
wicket  over  at  Repton,  and  Goose  would  have  to  win 
the  toss. 

Goose  I 

Meanwhile  it  was  only  Sunday,  and  Jan  knew  the 
habits  of  his  house  on  Sunday  morning;  now  was  his 
chance  of  the  bath.  Bathrooms  were  not  as  plentiful 
then  as  now;  there  was  only  one  between  both  sides  of 
the  house,  of  course  not  counting  the  shower  off  the 
lavatory.  That,  however,  was  now  out  of  bounds;  the 
bathroom  was  not,  and  Jan  got  to  it  first,  bolted  both 
doors  and  looked  out  into  the  quad  while  the  bath  was 
filling. 


"LIKE  LUCIFER"  331 

O  cursed  memories!  Here  was  another,  of  his  very 
first  sight  of  the  quad,  his  very  first  morning  in  the  school 
.  .  .  Well,  he  had  lived  to  be  cock  of  that  walk,  at  any 
rate;  on  those  fives-courts,  moreover,  with  their  un- 
orthodox back  wall,  he  was  certainly  leaving  no  superior. 
But  how  pleasant  it  all  looked  in  the  cool  morning  sun! 
There  is  a  peculiar  quality  about  Sunday  sunshine, 
a  restfulness  at  once  real  and  imaginary;  it  was  very 
real  to  Jan  as  he  took  leave  of  the  quiet  study  windows 
down  the  further  side,  and  down  this  one  the  empty 
garden  seats  shaded  by  the  laburnum  with  its  shrivelled 
blossoms,  the  little  acacia,  and  the  plane-tree  which  had 
been  blown  down  once  and  ever  since  held  in  leash  by 
a  chain.  Closer  at  hand,  hardly  out  of  reach,  the  dor- 
mitory windows  stood  wide  open;  but  nobody  got  up 
in  dormitory  till  the  last  five  minutes  on  a  Sunday  morn- 
ing, and  so  Jan  gloated  unobserved  on  the  set-scene 
of  so  much  that  had  happened  to  the  house  and  him 
— of  the  burglar-hunt  led  by  the  egregious  Spook — of 
Sprawson's  open  pranks  and  Shockley's  wary  brutalities. 
It  was  down  there  that  Mulberry  first  showed  his  fatal 
nose,  and  Jan  was  christened  Tiger,  and  it  was  there 
they  all  lit  up  a  slide  with  candles  at  the  end  of  his  first 
winter  term.  Now  it  was  the  end  of  all  terms  for  Jan, 
and  in  a  night  the  old  quad  had  changed  into  a  place  of 
the  past. 

It  was  better  in  the  cells  at  the  front  of  the  house; 
it  might  have  been  quite  bearable  there,  but  for  the 
bells.  But  on  a  Sunday  the  cracked  bell  rung  by  Mor- 
gan was  nothing  to  the  bells  you  heard  on  the  other  side 
of  the  house,  if  you  came  to  listen  to  them  as  Jan  did. 
Apparently  there  was  early  celebration  in  the  parish 
church  as  well  as  in  chapel;  but  that  was  the  only  time 
the  rival  bells  rang  an  actual  duet  of  sedate  discords. 


332  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

They  followed  each  other  with  due  propriety  all  the  rest 
of  the  day. 

The  chapel  bells  led  off  with  their  incorrigibly  merry 
measure.  Worse  hearing  was  the  accompanying  tramp 
of  boys  in  twos  and  threes,  in  Sunday  tails  or  Eton  jackets; 
looking  heartlessly  content  with  life;  taking  off  prse- 
postorial  hats,  or  touching  those  hot  school  caps,  to 
gowned  and  hooded  masters;  for  Jan  was  obliged  to 
peep  through  the  casement  blinds,  not  deliberately 
to  make  things  worse,  but  for  the  sake  or  on  the  chance 
of  a  single  moment's  distraction.  That  was  all  he  got. 
It  was  quite  true  that  there  were  heaps  of  fellows  now 
to  whom  he  could  not  put  a  name.  There  could  not 
have  been  more  in  his  second  or  third  term;  mere  mor- 
tal boys  do  not  excite  the  curiosity  of  gods;  but  once 
or  twice  poor  Lucifer  espied  some  still  unfallen  angel 
in  the  ribbon  of  shade  across  the  street.  One  was  Ibbot- 
son,  a  god  with  clay  feet,  if  ever  there  was  one;  but  there 
he  went,  looking  all  he  should  be,  to  the  happy  jingle 
of  those  callous  bells.  Ibbotson  would  come  down  as 
an  Old  Boy,  and  never  think  twice  of  what  he  had  really 
been.  Why  should  he?  Jan,  at  all  events,  was  not  his 
judge;  and  yet  he  would  be  one  of  Jan's. 

The  church  bells  came  as  a  relief,  richer  in  tone, 
poorer  in  association,  with  townspeople  on  the  pavement 
and  not  a  sound  in  the  house.  Jan  fell  to  and  packed. 
All  his  wardrobe  had  been  brought  in  now;  his  study 
possessions  would  be  sent  after  him;  so  Mr.  Heriot  had 
looked  in  to  say,  and  at  the  same  time  to  extract  an 
explicit  pledge  that  Jan  would  not  again  set  foot  on  the 
boys'  side  of  the  house.  He  wondered  if  the  bath  had 
been  judged  a  step  in  that  direction,  and  what  it  was 
feared  that  he  might  do  when  all  their  backs  were  turned. 
But  he  gave  his  word  without  complaining;    never,  to 


"LIKE  LUCIFER"  333 

be  sure,  had  condemned  man  less  cause  for  complaint. 
His  dietary  was  on  the  traditional  scale;  excellent  meals 
were  brought  to  the  spare  room.  There  was  the  usual 
sound  fare  for  dinner,  including  the  inevitable  cold 
apple-pie  with  cloves  in  it,  and  a  long  glass  of  beer  be- 
cause Jan's  exalted  place  in  the  house  entitled  him  (in 
those  unregenerate  days)  to  two  ordinary  glasses.  Mor- 
gan, at  any  rate,  could  not  know  what  he  was  there  for! 
Jan  was  wondering  whether  it  was  enough  to  make  him 
sleepy  after  his  wretched  night,  and  so  kill  an  hour  of 
this  more  wretched  day,  when  the  door  burst  open,  with- 
out preliminary  knock,  and  Carpenter  stood  wheezing  on 
the  other  side  of  the  bed. 

His  high  shoulders  heaved.  His  rather  unhealthy 
face  looked  grotesquely  intense  and  agonised.  It  was 
plain  at  a  glance  that  Old  Chips  knew  something. 

"  Oh,  Jan ! "  he  cried.     "  What  did  you  do  it  for  ?  " 

"  That's  my  business.    Who  sent  you  here  ?  " 

"  I  got  leave  from  Heriot." 

"Very  good  of  you,  I'm  sure!" 

"That  wasn't  why  I  came,"  said  Chips,  braced  though 
stung  by  this  reception.  He  had  shut  the  door  behind 
him.  He  walked  round  the  bed  with  the  extremely 
determined  air  of  one  in  whom  determination  was  not  a 
habit. 

"Well,  why  did  you  come?"  inquired  Jan,  though 
he  was  beginning  to  guess. 

"You  did  a  thing  I  couldn't  have  believed  you'd  do!" 

"Many  things,  it  seems." 

"I'm  only  thinking  of  one.  The  others  dcm't  con- 
cern me.  You  went  into  my  locker  and — and  broke 
into  the  house  money-box!" 

"I  left  you  something  worth  five  times  as  much,  and 
I  owned  what  I'd  done  in  black  and  white. " 


334  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"  I  know  that.  Here's  your  watch  and  your  I.O.U.  I 
found  them  after  chapel  this  morning. " 

Jan  took  his  treasure  eagerly,  laid  it  on  the  dressing- 
table,  and  produced  his  packet  of  coins  from  one  of  the 
small  side  drawers. 

"And  here's  your  money,"  said  he.  "You'd  better 
count  it;  you  won't  find  a  sixpence  missing." 

Chips  stared  at  him  with  round  eyes. 

"  But  what  on  earth  did  you  borrow  it  for  ?  " 

"That's  my  business,"  said  Jan,  in  the  same  tone  as 
before,  though  Chips  had  changed  his. 

"I  don't  know  how  you  knew  I  had  all  this  money. 
It  isn't  usual  late  in  the  term  like  this,  when  all  the  subs, 
have  been  banked  long  ago. " 

Jan  showed  no  disposition  to  explain  the  deed. 

"  This  is  my  business,  you  know, "  persisted  Chips. 

"Oh!  is  it?  Then  I  don't  mind  telling  you  I  heard 
you  filling  your  precious  coffers  after  dinner. " 

It  was  Chips's  own  term  for  the  money-box  in  which 
as  captain  of  the  house  he  placed  the  various  house 
subscriptions  as  he  received  them.  He  looked  dis- 
tressed. 

"  I  was  afraid  you  must  have  heard  me. " 

"Then  why  did  you  ask?" 

"I  hoped  you  hadn't." 

"What  difference  does  it  make?" 

"You  heard  me  with  the  money,  and  yet  you  couldn't 
come  in  and  ask  me  to  lend  it  to  you." 

"I  should  like  to  have  seen  you  do  it  I" 

"  The  money  was  for  something  special,  Jan. " 

"I  thought  it  was." 

"Half  the  house  had  just  been  giving  me  their  allow- 
ances, but  some  had  got  more  from  home  expressly." 

"Yet  you  pretend  you'd  have  let  me  touch  iti" 


"LIKE  LUCIFER"  335 

Chips  bore  this  taunt  without  heat,  yet  with  a  treach- 
erous lip. 

"  I  would,  Jan,  every  penny  of  it." 

"Why  should  you?" 

"Because  it  was  yours  already!  It  was  only  for 
something  we  were  all  going  to  give  you  because  of — be- 
cause of  those  cups  we  got  through  you — and — ^and  every- 
thing else  you've  done  for  the  house,  Jan!" 

An  emotional  dog,  this  Chips,  he  still  had  the  sense 
to  see  that  it  was  not  for  him  to  show  emotion  then,  and 
the  self-control  to  act  up  to  his  lights.  But  he  could  not 
help  thrusting  the  packet  back  towards  Jan,  as  much  as  to 
say  that  it  was  still  his  and  he  must  really  take  it  with 
the  good  wishes  he  now  needed  more  than  ever.  Not  a 
word  of  the  kind  from  his  lips,  and  yet  every  syllable 
in  his  eyes  and  gestures.  But  Jan  only  shook  his  head, 
wheeled  round,  and  stood  looking  down  into  the  street. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

CHIPS  AND  JAN 

Anybody  entering  the  room  just  then  would  have  smelt 
bad  blood  between  the  fellow  looking  out  of  the  window 
and  the  other  fellow  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  bed. 
Jan's  whole  attitude  was  one  of  injury,  and  Chips  looked 
thoroughly  guilty  of  a  grave  offence  against  the  laws  of 
friendship.  Even  when  Jan  turned  round  it  was  with  the 
glare  which  is  the  first  skin  over  an  Englishman's  wound; 
only  a  hoarse  solicitude  of  tone  confessed  the  wound  self- 
inflicted,  and  the  visitor  a  bringer  of  balm  hardly  to  be 
borne. 

"  I  suppose  you  know  what's,  happened.  Chips  ? " 

"  I  don't  know  much." 

"Not  that  I'm— going?" 

"That's  about  all." 

"Isn't  it  enough,  Chips?" 

"No.    I  want  to  know  why." 

Jan's  look  grew  searching. 

"If  Heriot  told  you  so  much " 

"  He  didn't  till  I  pressed  him." 

"Why  should  you  have  pressed  him.  Chips?    What 
had  you  heard  ?  " 

"Only  something  they  were  saying  in  the  Sixth  Form 
Room;  there's  nothing  really  got  about  yet." 

"You  might  tell  me  what  they're  saying!     I — I  don't 
want  to  be  made  out  ever  so  much  worse  than  I  am." 

336 


CHIPS  AND  JAN  337 

That  was  not  quite  the  case.  He  wanted  to  know 
whether  there  was  any  movement,  or  even  any  strong 
feeling,  in  his  favour;  but  it  was  a  sudden  want,  and  he 
could  not  bring  himself  to  clothe  it  in  words.  It  was  his 
prototype's  hope  of  a  reprieve,  entertained  with  as  little 
reason,  more  as  a  passing  irresistible  thought. 

"They  say  there  was  nothing  the  matter  with  you 
yesterday  afternoon." 

"No  more  there  was.     I  was  shamming." 

Chips  experienced  something  of  Heriot's  revulsion  at 
this  avowal. 

"They  say  you  went  off — to — meet  somebody." 

"How  did  they  get  hold  of  that,  I  should  like  to 
know?" 

Of  course  the  masters  had  been  talking;  why  should 
they  not?  But  then  why  had  Heriot  pretended  that 
nobody  was  to  know  just  yet?  Why  had  Haigh  talked 
about  the  worst  cases  being  kept  quiet?  Chips  allayed 
rising  resentment  by  saying  he  believed  it  had  come 
through  a  fly-man,  whereupon  Jan  admitted  that  it  was 
perfectly  true. 

"They  say  you  drove  out  to  Yardley  Wood." 

"So  I  did." 

"  It  was  madness! " 

Jan  shrugged  his  powerful  shoulders. 

"  I  took  my  risks,  and  I  was  bowled  out,  that's  all." 

Chips  looked  at  him;  the  cynically  glib  admissions 
were  ceasing  to  grate  on  him,  were  beginning  to  excite 
the  incredulity  with  which  he  had  first  heard  of  the  sui- 
cidal escapade.  This  shameless  front  was  not  a  bit  like 
Jan,  whatever  he  had  done,  and  Chips  who  knew  him 
best  was  the  first  to  perceive  it. 

"I  wish  I  knew  why  you'd  done  it!"  he  exclaimed 
ingenuously. 


338  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"What  do  they  say  about  that?"  inquired  Jan. 

"  Well,  there  was  some  talk  about — about  a  bit  of  a — 
romance!" 

Jan's  grin  made  him  look  quite  himself. 

"Nicely  put,  Chips!  But  you  can  contradict  that  on 
the  best  authority." 

"Now  it's  got  about  that  it's  a  drinking  row." 

"That's  more  like  it." 

"It's  what  most  fellows  believe,"  said  Chips,  with 
questionable  tact. 

"Oh,  is  it?    Think  I  look  the  part,  do  they?" 

"Not  you,  Jan " 

"What  then?" 

Chips  did  not  like  going  on,  but  was  obliged  to 
now. 

"Well,  some  fellows  seem  to  think  that — except  yes- 
terday, of  course — ^your  bowling " 

"Has  suffered  from  it,  eh?  Go  on.  Chips!  I  like 
this.     I  like  it  awfully!" 

And  this  time  Jan  laughed  outright,  but  did  not  look 
himself. 

"It's  not  what  I  say,  Jan!     I  wouldn't  hear  of  it." 

"Very  kind  of  you,  I'm  sure;  but  I  shouldn't  wonder 
if  you  thought  it  all  the  same." 

"I  don't,  I  tell  you!" 

"I  wouldn't  blame  you  if  you  did.  How  things  fit  in! 
Any  other  circumstantial  evidence  against  me?" 

Chips  hesitated  again. 

"  Out  with  it,  man.    I  may  as  well  know." 

"Well,  some  say — but  only  some — that's  why  you've 
been  going  about  so  much  by  yourself! " 

"  To  go  off  on  the  spree  alone  ?  " 

Chips  nodded.  "You  see, you  often  refused  to  go  out 
even  with  me,"  he  said  reproachfully;   not  as  though  he 


CHIPS  AND  JAN  339 

believed  the  worst  himself,  but  in  a  tone  of  excuse  for 
those  who  did. 

Jan  could  only  stare.  His  unsociability  had  been  due 
of  course  to  his  unpopularity  with  his  Eleven,  his  estrange- 
ment from  Evan,  and  his  delicacy  about  falling  back  on 
Chips,  And  even  Chips  could  not  see  that  for  himself, 
but  saw  if  anything  with  the  other  idiots!  This  was  too 
much  for  Jan;  it  made  him  look  more  embittered  than 
was  wise  if  he  still  wished  to  be  taken  as  the  only  villain 
of  the  piece.  But  the  fact  was  that  for  the  moment  he 
was  forgetting  to  act. 

"Solitary  drinking!"  he  ejaculated.  "Bad  case, 
isn't  it?" 

"It  isn't  a  case  at  all,"  returned  Chips,  looking  him 
in  the  face.  "  I  don't  believe  a  word  of  the  whole  thing! 
Even  if  it's  true  that  you  went  out  to  Yardley  to  meet 
Mulberry " 

"Who  say's  that?" 

"Oh,  it's  one  of  the  things  that's  got  about.  But  I 
can  jolly  well  see  that  if  you  did  go  to  meet  him  it  wasn't 
on  your  own  account!" 

Confound  old  Chips!  He  was  looking  as  if  he  could 
fairly  see  into  a  fellow's  skull,  and  very  likely  making  a 
fellow  look  in  turn  as  big  a  fool  as  he  felt! 

"Of  course  you  know  more  about  it  than  I  do!" 
sneered  Jan,  desperately.  "  But  do  you  suppose  I'd  do  a 
thing  like  that  for  anybody  but  myself?" 

"  I  believe  you'd  do  a  jolly  sight  more,"  replied  Chips, 
"  for  Evan  Devereux! " 

Jan  made  no  reply  beyond  an  unconvincing  little 
laugh;  of  plain  denial  he  looked  as  incapable  as  he 
actually  was,  in  his  surprise  at  so  shrewd  a  thrust. 

"The  whole  thing  was  for  Devereux!"  pursued  Car- 
penter with  explosive  conviction.    "What  about  him'  and 


340  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Sandham  out  at  Yardley  the  other  Sunday,  when  old 
Mulberry  beckoned  to  us  by  mistake?  Obviously  he 
mistook  us  for  them;  I  thought  so  at  the  time,  but  you 
wouldn't  have  it,  just  because  it  was  Devereux!  What 
about  his  coming  to  you  yesterday  morning,  in  such  a 
stew  about  something?  Oh,  I  didn't  listen,  but  anybody 
could  spot  that  something  was  up.  What  a  fool  I  was  not 
to  see  the  whole  thing  from  the  first!  Why,  of  course 
you'd  never  have  touched  that  money  for  yourself,  let 
alone  planting  out  the  thing  I  know  you  value  more  than 
anything  else  you've  got!" 

Still  Jan  said  nothing,  even  when  explicitly  challenged 
to  deny  it  if  he  could.  He  only  stood  still  and  looked 
mysterious,  while  he  racked  his  brain  for  something  to 
explain  his  look  along  with  those  other  appearances  which 
Chips  had  interpreted  so  unerringly.  He  felt  in  a  great 
rage  with  Chips,  and  yet  somehow  in  nothing  like  such  a 
rage  as  he  had  been  in  before.  It  had  taken  old  Chips  to 
see  that  he  was  not  such  a  blackguard  as  he  had  made 
himself  out;  that  was  something  to  remember  in  the 
silly  fool's  favour;  he  was  the  only  one,  when  all  was 
said  and  done,  to  believe  the  best  of  a  fellow  in  spite  of 
everything,  even  in  spite  of  the  fellow  himself. 

Condemned  men  cannot  afford  to  send  their  only 
friends  to  blazes.  But  Chips  soon  went  the  way  to  get 
himself  that  happy  dispatch. 

"Why  should  you  do  all  this  for  Evan  Devereux?" 
he  demanded. 

"All  what.  Chips?    I  never  said  I'd  done  anything." 

"  Oh,  all  right,  you  haven't!  But  what's  he  ever  done 
for  you?" 

"Plenty." 

"Name  something — anything — he's  ever  done  except 
when  you  were  in  a  position  to  do  more  for  him!" 


CHIPS  AND  JAN  341 

And  then  Jan  did  tell  him  where  to  go.  But  Chips 
only  laughed  in  his  face,  with  the  spendthrift  courage  of  a 
fellow  who  did  not  as  a  rule  show  enough,  though  he  had 
it  all  the  same  when  his  blood  was  up.  And  now  he  was 
in  as  great  a  passion  as  Jan,  and  just  for  a  moment  it  was 
as  fine  a  passion  too. 

"You  start  cursing  me  because  you  haven't  any 
answer.  Curse  away,  and  come  to  blows  if  you  like;  you 
shan't  shift  me  out  of  this  until  I've  said  what  I've  got  to 
say,  not  if  I  have  to  hang  on  to  this  bedstead  and  bring 
the  place  about  our  ears!" 

"  Don't  be  a  fool,  Chips,"  said  Jan,  perceiving  that  he 
required  self-control  for  two.  "  You  know  you've  always 
had  a  down  on  Evan." 

"Well,  perhaps  I  have.  Doesn't  he  deserve  it? 
What  did  he  ever  do  for  you  your  first  term — though  he'd 
known  you  at  home  ?  " 

"That  was  no  reason  why  he  should  do  anything. 
What  could  he  do  ?  We  were  in  different  houses  and  dif- 
ferent forms;  besides,  I  was  higher  up  in  the  school,  as  it 
happened,  as  well  as  a  bit  older." 

"That's  nothing;  still  I  rather  agree  with  you,  though 
he  was  here  first,  remember.  But  what  about  your  second 
term  or  my  third  ?  He  overtook  us  each  in  turn,  but  did 
he  ever  go  out  of  his  way  to  say  a  civil  word  to  either  of 
us,  though  he'd  known  us  both  before?" 

"Yes;  he  did." 

"Yes,  he  did!  When  you'd  made  a  little  bit  of  a 
name  for  yourself  over  the  Mile  he  was  out  for  a  walk 
with  you  in  a  minute.  That's  the  fellow  all  over,  and  has 
been  all  the  time.  I  remember  how  it  was  when  you  got 
in  the  Eleven,  if  you  don't!" 

But  Jan  did  remember,  and  it  made  him  think.  Like 
most  boys  who  are  good  at  games,  he  had  acquired  in 


342  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

their  practice  great  fairness  of  mind.  He  thought  Chips 
was  unfair  to  Evan,  and  yet  he  wanted  to  be  fair  to  Chips, 
whom  he  recognised  in  his  heart  as  by  far  the  sounder 
fellow  of  the  two.  Chips  was  the  loyal,  unswerving,  faith- 
ful friend  who  not  only  bore  a  friend's  infirmities  but 
blew  his  trumpet  as  few  would  blow  their  own.  But  he 
had  without  doubt  some  of  the  usual  defects  of  such 
qualities;  he  was  touchy,  he  could  be  jealous,  though 
Jan  was  not  the  one  to  tell  him  that;  but  on  the  touchi- 
ness he  dwelt  with  a  tact  made  tender  by  his  own  trouble. 

"The  fact  is.  Chips,  you're  such  a  good  old  chap 
yourself  that  you  want  everybody  else  to  be  the  same  as 
you.  You  wouldn't  hurt  a  fellow's  feelings,  so  you  can't 
forgive  the  chaps  who  do  it  without  thinking.  Not  one  in 
a  hundred  makes  as  much  of  things  as  you  do,  or  takes 
things  so  to  heart.  But  that's  because  you're  what  you  are, 
Chips;  you  oughtn't  to  be  down  on  everybody  who  doesn't 
happen  to  be  built  as  straight  and  true." 

"Don't  be  too  sure  that  I'm  either!"  exclaimed  Car- 
penter, flinching  unaccountably. 

"You're  only  about  the  straightest  chap  in  the  whole 
school.  Chips.     Everybody  knows  that,  I  should  think." 

"I've  a  good  mind  to  set  everybody  right!"  cried 
Carpenter,  worked  up  to  more  than  he  had  dreamed  of 
saying,  a  wild  impulse  burning  in  his  eyes.  "  I  can't  see 
you  bunked  for  nothing,  when  others  including  me  have 
done  all  sorts  of  things  to  deserve  it.  Yes,  Jan,  including 
me!  You  think  I've  been  so  straight!  So  I  was  in  the 
beginning;  so  I  am  now,  if  you  like,  but  I've  not  been  all 
the  time.  Don't  stop  me.  I  won't  be  stopped;  but 
that's  about  all  I've  got  to  say.  I've  always  wanted  you 
to  know.  You're  the  only  fellow  in  the  place  I  care  much 
for,  who  cares  much  for  me,  though  not  so  much " 

"Yes  I  do.  Chips,  yes  I  do!     I  never  thought  so  much 


CHIPS  AND  JAN  343 

of  you  as  I  do  this  minute.  ...  I  don't  say  it  never  crossed 
my  mind.  .  .  .  But  don't  you  make  yourself  out  worse 
than  you  ever  were,  even  to  me!" 

"  I  don't  want  to.  .  .  .  It  didn't  go  on  so  long,  and  it's 
all  over  now.  .  .  .  But  I  shall  get  the  praepostor's  medal 
when  I  leave — ^unless  I'm  man  enough  to  refuse  it — and 
you've  been  bunked  for  standing  by  a  fellow  who  never 
would  have  stood  by  you!" 

"  That's  where  you're  wrong,  Chips,"  said  Jan,  gently. 

"  No,  I'm  not.     It's  the  other  way  about." 

"You  don't  know  how  Evan's  stood  by  me  all  these 
years." 

Carpenter  maintained  a  strange  silence — very  strange 
in  him,  just  then  especially — a  silence  that  made  him 
ashamed  and  yet  exultant. 

"Do  you  know,  Chips?" 

"  It  depends  what  you  think  he's  done." 

"I'll  tell  you,"  said  Jan  with  sudden  yet  quiet  reso- 
lution, and  a  lift  of  his  head  as  though  the  peak  of  a  cap 
had  been  pulled  down  too  far.  "I  had  a  secret  when  I 
came  here,  and  Evan  knew  it  but  nobody  else.  It  was 
a  big  secret — ^about  my  people  and  me  too — ^and  if  it  had 
oome  out  then  I'd  have  bolted  like  a  rabbit.  I  know  now 
that  it  wouldn't  have  mattered  as  much  as  I  thought  it 
would;  things  about  your  people,  or  anything  that  ever 
happened  anywhere  else,  don't  hurt  or  help  much  in  a 
place  like  this.  It's  what  you  can  do  and  how  you  take 
things  that  matters  here.  But  I  didn't  know  that  then 
and  I  don't  suppose  Evan  did  either.  Yet  he  kept  a  quiet 
tongue  in  his  head  about  everything  he  did  know.  And 
that's  what  I  owe  him — all  it  meant  to  me  then,  and  does 
still  in  a  way — his  holding  his  tongue  like  that!'* 

Still  Chips  held  his;  and  now  Jan  was  the  prey  of 
doubts  which  his  own  voice  had  silenced.    All  that  the 


344  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

familiar  debt  had  gained  by  clear  statement  was  counter- 
acted by  the  stony  demeanour  of  its  first  auditor. 

"Did  he  ever  tell  you,  Chips?" 

"The  very  first  time  I  saw  him,  our  very  first  term!" 

"  Not — not  about  my  father  and — the  stables — and  all 
that?" 

"Everything!" 

Jan  threw  himself  back  four  years. 

"  Yet  when  I  sounded  you  at  the  time " 

"  I  told  you  the  lie  of  my  life! "  said  Chips.  "  I  couldn't 
help  myself.     But  this  is  the  truth!" 

And  Jan  took  it  with  the  enviable  composure  which 
had  only  deserted  him  when  Evan  was  being  traduced ;  it 
was  several  seconds  before  he  made  a  sound,  still  standing 
there  with  his  back  to  the  bedroom  window;  and  then 
the  sound  was  very  like  a  chuckle. 

"Well,  at  any  rate  he  can't  have  told  many!" 

"  I  don't  suppose  he  did." 

"Then  he  picked  the  right  one,  Chipsey,  and  I  still 
owe  him  almost  as  much  as  I  do  you." 

"You  owe  old  Heriot  more  than  either  of  us." 

"Heriot!     Why?     Does  he  know?" 

"  He  knew  all  along,  but  he  never  meant  you  to  know 
that  he  knew.  He  guessed  how  you'd  feel  it  if  you  did; 
he  guesses  everything!  Why,  that  very  first  Saturday,  if 
you  remember,  when  Devereux  turned  up  for  call-over  and 
began  telling  me  the  minute  afterwards,  it  was  as  though 
Bob  Heriot  simply  saw  what  he  was  saying!  He  pounced 
upcm  us  both  that  instant,  dropped  a  pretty  plain  hint  on 
the  spot,  but  asked  us  to  breakfast  next  morning  and 
then  absolutely  bound  us  over  never  to  let  out  a  single 
word  about  you  in  all  our  days  here!" 

"So  Evan*d  been  talking  before  he  told  me  he  never 
would,"  mused  Jan.     "Well,  I  can't  blame  him  so  much 


CHIPS  AND  JAN  345 

for  that.  I'm  not  sure,  Chips,  that  I  should  have  done 
so  differently  now  even  if  I'd  known.  I  liked  him  even 
in  the  old  days  when  we  were  kids.     Must  you  go  ? " 

The  question  was  asked  in  a  very  wistful  tone.  Chips 
felt,  rather  uneasily,  that  in  these  few  minutes  he  had 
ousted  Evan  and  taken  his  old  place.  He  could  not  help 
it  if  he  had.  It  had  not  been  his  intention  on  coming 
into  the  room.     It  was  no  use  regretting  it  now. 

"I  told  Heriot  I  wouldn't  stay  very  long,"  he  an- 
swered.    "  I'll  get  him  to  let  me  come  up  again." 

"  And  you  won't  tell  him  anything  about  Evan  ?  " 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"You  won't  tell  him  a  single  word  about  our  having 
seen  him  and  Sandham  that  day  ?  " 

Chips  was  silent. 

"  Surely  you  wouldn't  go  getting  them  bunked  as  well 
as  me?" 

"Well— no— not  exactly." 

"I  should  think  not!  It  wouldn't  do  any  good,  you 
see,  even  if  you  did,"  said  Jan,  suddenly  discovering  why 
he  had  looked  so  mysterious  some  minutes  back.  "You 
forget  that  Evan  and  I  used  to  go  about  together  quite  as 
much  as  he  and  Sandham  have  been  doing  all  this  year. 
What  if  it  was  me  that  first  started  playing  the  fool  in 
Yardley  Wood?  What  if  old  Mulberry  knows  more 
against  me  than  anybody  else?  It  wouldn't  do  me  much 
good  to  put  them  in  the  same  boat,  would  it  ? " 

"But  does  he,  Jan,  honestly?" 

"  Honesdy,  I'm  sorry  to  say." 

"It's  too  awful!" 

"  But  you  will  hold  your  tongue  about  the  other  two, 
won't  you.  Chips?" 

"If  you  like." 

"  You  promise  ?  " 


346  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Very  well.    I  promise." 

But  Chips  Carpenter  was  reckoning  without  Mr. 
Heriot,  a  magnificent  schoolmaster,  but  a  Grand  Inquisi- 
tor at  getting  things  out  of  fellows  when  he  liked.  To  his 
credit,  he  never  did  like  a  task  which  some  schoolmasters 
seem  to  enjoy;  but  he  was  not  the  man  to  shirk  a  distaste- 
ful duty.  Carpenter  had  long  outstayed  his  leave  upstairs 
and  the  spare  room  was  directly  over  Heriot's  study. 
Voices  had  been  raised  at  one  time  to  an  angry  pitch, 
and  this  had  set  the  man  below  thinking,  but  certainly  not 
listening  more  than  he  could  help.  Nor  had  he  caught  a 
single  word;  but  he  had  to  remember  that  Carpenter's 
pretext  for  the  visit  was  a  private  money  matter,  and 
other  circumstances  connected  with  Jan's  finances. 

He  waylaid  Chips  on  his  way  down. 

"  Well,  Carpenter,  you've  been  a  long  time  ?  '* 

"I'm  afraid  I  have,  sir." 

"I  gave  you  ten  minutes  and  you  took  five-and- 
twenty.    However,  I  hope  you  got  your  money  ?  " 

Chips  started. 

"What  money,  sir?" 

"Didn't  you  go  to  collect  a  private  debt?" 

"  I  don't  know  how  you  knew,  sir." 

"I  happen  to  know  that  Rutter  had  a  good  deal  of 
money  on  Saturday,  and  that  he  never  as  a  rule  has  half 
enough." 

"  Yes,  sir;  he  paid  me  back  every  penny,"  said  Chips, 
without  attempting  to  escape. 

He  was  in  fact  extremely  interested  in  this  question 
of  the  money,  which  had  been  driven  out  of  his  mind  by 
other  matters,  only  to  return  now  with  evident  and  yet 
puzzling  significance.  He  was  wondering  whether  this 
was  not  a  point  on  which  he  could  confide  honourably  in 
Heriot,  since  Jan  had  laid  no  embargo  on  the  subject. 


CHIPS  AND  JAN  347 

He  might  only  have  forgotten  to  do  so — Chips  had  a  high 
conception  of  honour  in  such  matters — but  anything  to 
throw  Hght  on  the  mystery  before  it  was  too  late! 

"  Now,  you  and  Rutter  have  been  great  friends,  haven't 
you,  Carpenter?" 

It  was  the  skilful  questioner  proceeding  on  his  own 
repugnant  lines. 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  think  we  have,  on  the  whole. " 

"  Has  he  ever  borrowed  money  from  you  before?" 

"Never  a  penny,  sir." 

"  Had  he  rather  strong  principles  on  the  point  ?  " 

"  I  used  to  think  he  had,  sir. " 

*'  Do  you  think  he'd  break  them  for  his  own  sake. 
Carpenter?" 

"No,  sir,  I  don't!  I — I  practically  told  him  so," 
replied  Chips,  after  considering  whether  he  was  free  to 
say  as  much. 

"I've  only  one  other  question  to  ask  you,  Carpenter. 
You  told  me,  before  I  let  you  go  up,  that  several  of  the 
leading  fellows  know  something  about  what's  happened." 

"They  do,  sir." 

"Can  you  think  of  anybody  who  doesn't  know,  and 
perhaps  ought  to  know,  while  there's  time?" 

Chips  felt  his  heart  leap  within  him,  only  to  sink 
under  the  weight  of  his  last  promise  to  Jan;  he  shrank 
from  the  very  mention  of  Evan's  name  after  such  a 
solemn  undertaking  as  that.    And  yet  Jan  came  first. 

"Well,  sir,  I-<;ow;(i." 

"Then  won't  you?" 

"  If  you  wouldn't  ask  me  for  my  reasons,  sir. " 

Heriot  smiled  in  incipient  inquisitorial  triumph.  It 
was  a  wry  smile  over  a  wry  job,  but  he  had  come  to  his 
feet,  and  his  spectacles  were  flashing  formidably.  The 
poor  lad's  honest  reservation  was  more  eloquent  than 


348  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

unconditional   indiscretion    in    ears   attuned    to   puerile 
nuances. 

"I  may  ask  you  anything  I  like.  Carpenter,  but  I 
can't  make  you  answer  anything  you  don't  like!  I  can 
only  suggest  to  you  that  there's  probably  some  fellow  who 
might  help  us  if  he  were  not  in  the  dark.  Will  you  give 
me  the  name  that  occurred  to  you  ? " 


CHAPTER  XXX 

HIS  LAST  FLING 

Jan  turned  back  to  the  bedroom  window,  and  stood  look- 
ing out  with  eyes  that  saw  less  than  ever.  The  window 
was  open  at  the  bottom;  he  kept  a  discreet  distance  from 
the  sill,  but  might  have  seen  a  strip  of  the  pavement 
opposite,  now  dappled  by  a  sudden  shower.  He  was  as 
the  blind,  however,  until  a  slight  crash  below  made  him 
pop  his  head  out  without  thinking.  Then  he  saw  that  it 
was  raining,  because  Mr.  Heriot  had  emerged  from  the 
house,  and  broken  into  a  run  instead  of  returning  for  his 
umbrella. 

The  only  thought  Jan  gave  him  was  a  twinge  of 
wonder  that  he  could  go  his  ways  so  briskly  with  the 
virtual  head  of  his  house  lying  under  sentence  of  expulsion 
in  the  spare  room.  Heriot  was  mighty  keen  on  his  house, 
keenly  critical  and  appreciative  of  every  fellow  in  it,  but 
keener  yet  on  a  corporate  entity,  mysteriously  independent 
of  the  individuals  that  made  it  up,  which  expressed  itself 
in  Jan's  mind  as  "  the  house  itself. "  He  too  had  felt  like 
that  about  the  house  cricket  and  the  school  Eleven;  the 
best  bat  got  measles,  and  it  was  no  good  giving  him 
another  thought.  And  yet  somehow  it  made  Jan  himself 
feel  bitterly  small  to  see  Heriot  gadding  about  his  business 
like  that  in  the  rain. 

Otherwise  the  sight  did  him  good,  in  liberating  his 
mind  from  the  overload  of  new  ideas  that  weighed  it 

349 


350  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

down.  Always  a  great  talker,  that  poor  old  Chips  had 
told  him  so  much  in  such  quick  time  that  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  keep  his  outpourings  distinct  and  apart  from  each 
other;  they  were  like  the  blots  of  rain  on  the  pavement, 
spreading,  joining,  overlapping  into  a  featureless  whole. 
But  the  shower  ceased  even  as  Jan  looked  down;  the 
pavement  began  to  dry  before  all  semblance  of  design  was 
obliterated;  and  the  fusion  of  fresh  impressions  suffered 
an  analogous  arrest. 

Evan  dried  by  himself.  .  . 

Jan  brought  a  cane  chair  to  the  window,  and  sat 
down  to  think  about  Evan,  to  be  fair  to  old  Evan  at  all 
costs.  It  was  easy  to  be  down  on  him,  to  feel  he  had 
been  guilty  of  unpardonable  perfidy;  but  had  he?  Was 
there  any  great  reason  why  he  should  not  have  told  Chips 
— Chips  whom  he  knew  of  old,  and  whom  he  had  seen 
with  Jan?  Surely  it  was  the  most  natural  confidence  in 
the  world;  and  then  it  was  the  only  one,  even  Chips 
thought  that,  though  Jan  was  not  so  sure  when  he  re- 
called the  bold  scorn  of  Sandham  and  some  others  in 
the  Eleven — their  indistinguishable  whispers  and  their 
unmistakable  looks.  But,  even  so!  Had  he  ever  asked 
Evan  to  keep  his  secret?  Had  not  Evan,  on  the  other 
hand,  kept  it  on  the  whole  unasked  ?  Was  it  not  due  to 
him  first  and  last  that  the  whole  school  had  not  got  hold 
of  it?  Chips  might  say  what  he  liked  about  Heriot,  but 
no  master  could  impose  secrecy  upon  a  boy  against  the 
boy's  will.  Evan's  will  towards  Jan  must  always  have  been 
of  the  best.  It  was  Jan's  own  fault  if  he  had  imagined 
himself  under  an  inconceivable  obligation ;  it  only  showed 
what  a  simpleton  he  had  always  been  about  Evan  Dever- 
eux.  That  was  it!  He  was  far  too  simple  altogether; 
even  now  he  could  not  shake  off  all  his  unreasonable 
disappointment   because   Evan   had   been   a   trifle   less 


HIS  LAST  FLING  351 

loyal  to  him,  in  the  very  beginning,  than  he  had  chosen 
to  flatter  himself  all  these  years. 

It  was  a  comfort  to  turn  to  the  other  side  of  the  ac- 
count. Thank  goodness  he  had  been  able  to  do  some- 
thing for  Evan  in  the  end!  He  did  owe  it  to  him,  what- 
ever Chips  chose  to  say  or  think.  Chips  was  a  jealous 
old  fool;  there  was  no  getting  away  from  that.  Jan  only 
hoped  he  had  not  given  Chips  an  inkling  of  the  real  facts 
of  the  case.  He  did  not  think  he  had.  It  had  been 
a  happy  thought  to  pretend  that  Evan's  connection  with 
his  downfall  was  that  of  the  feeble  accomplice  whom  he 
and  not  Sandham  had  led  astray;  it  really  made  expulsion 
too  good  for  him,  so  Chips  would  be  under  no  temptation 
to  let  it  out  or  to  drag  in  Evan's  name  at  all.  In  any 
case  he  had  promised.  He  was  a  man  of  his  word.  He 
was  the  soul  of  honour  and  integrity,  old  Chips  ...  so  at 
least  Jan  had  always  thought  him  down  to  this  very 
afternoon.    Simpleton  again! 

Chips,  of  all  people,  not  always  any  better  than  he 
should  have  been  .  .  .  Jan  could  not  get  that  out  of  his 
head;  it  was  another  disappointment  to  his  simplicity. 
He  had  thought  he  knew  the  worst  of  Chips,  his  touchi- 
ness, his  jealousy,  taking  too  much  notice  of  himself 
and  sometimes  thinking  that  other  people  did  not  take 
enough.  A  bit  weak-minded  and  excitable,  Jan  would 
have  called  him,  thinking  of  the  morbid  and  emotional 
side  of  his  friend's  character  which  had  certainly  shown 
itself  that  day.  But  what  enthusiasm,  what  a  heart,  and 
what  a  head  too  in  its  way!  It  only  showed  that  you 
knew  very  little,  really,  about  anybody  else,  even  your 
intimate  house-mate;  but  it  might  also  have  shown  Jan 
that  he  was  slow  to  think  evil,  slow  to  perceive  the  worst 
side  of  the  life  around  him,  and  not  only  simple  but  pure 
in  heart  in  spite  of  all  those  years  about  the  stables. 


352  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

He  supposed  he  had  not  the  same  temptations  as  other 
fellows.  Here  were  his  two  friends,  as  opposite  to  each 
other  as  they  were  to  him,  the  three  of  them  as  far  apart 
as  the  points  of  an  equilateral  triangle.  Each  of  the 
other  two  had  gone  wrong  in  his  way.  And  yet  per- 
haps neither  of  them  would  have  touched  money  that 
did  not  belong  to  him,  on  any  pretext  or  in  any  circum- 
stances whatsoever! 

The  money  took  Jan  back  to  the  wood;  the  wood  led 
him  straight  to  Mulberry;  and  suddenly  he  wondered 
whether  Evan  had  really  heard  the  last  of  that  vagabond. 
The  very  thought  of  a  doubt  about  it  made  Jan  uneasy. 
Had  he  frightened  the  blackmailer  sufficiently  as  such? 
He  had  gone  away  without  his  money;  that  might  or 
might  not  be  mere  drunken  forgetfulness.  Jan,  how- 
ever, would  have  felt  rather  more  certain  of  his  man 
if  he  had  put  himself  more  in  the  wrong  by  actually 
taking  every  penny  he  could  get;  that  and  the  very  dras- 
tic form  of  receipt — never  signed — had  been  the  pivot 
of  his  scheme  for  scotching  Mulberry.  If  it  were  to 
miscarry  after  all,  in  its  prime  object  of  saving  Evan  from 
persecution  and  disgrace;  if  appearances  should  still  be 
doubted  and  Mulberry  be  bribed  or  frightened  into  telling 
the  truth;  why,  then — good  Lord! — then  he  himself  might 
yet  be  reinstated — at  Evan's  expense  I 

Once  more  Jan  despised  himself  for  harbouring  any 
such  thought  for  a  single  moment;  he  kicked  it  out  like 
a  very  Mulberry  of  the  mind,  and  saw  it  in  the  mental 
gutter  as  a  most  unlikely  contingency.  He  considered 
his  own  handling  of  the  creature,  the  motive  given  him 
for  revenge,  the  dexterous  promptitude  with  which 
revenge  had  been  taken.  No;  such  an  enemy,  so  made, 
would  never  willingly  avow  a  very  inspiration  of  low 
cunning.  .  . 


HIS  LAST  FLING  353 

The  mossy,  wrinkled  roofs  of  the  old  tiled  houses 
opposite  Heriot's  stood  out  once  more  against  a  cloudless 
sky;  the  pavement  underneath  was  dry  as  a  bone;  the 
little  town  was  basking  in  the  sleepy  sunshine  of  the 
Sunday  afternoon.  Suddenly  those  irrepressible  chapel 
bells  broke  out  with  their  boyish  clangour. 

Boyish  they  are  and  always  will  be  while  there  are 
boys  to  hear  them;  they  ring  in  the  veins  after  thirty 
years,  and  make  old  blood  pelt  like  young.  Surely  there 
is  no  such  hearty,  happy  peal  elsewhere  on  earth  I  It  got 
into  Jan's  blood  though  he  was  only  leaving  next  morning, 
and  would  never,  never  be  able  to  come  down  as  an  au- 
thorised Old  Boy.  So  he  would  never  be  allowed  in 
chapel  again,  unless  he  stole  in  when  nobody  was  about, 
some  day,  a  bearded  bushman  "home  for  a  spell."  It 
seemed  hard.  There  went  the  bells  again!  They  might 
have  let  him  obey  their  kindling  call  for  the  last  time; 
it  might  have  made  some  difference  to  his  life. 

How  could  they  stop  him?  Could  they  stop  him? 
Would  they  if  they  could?  The  questions  followed  each 
other  almost  as  quickly  as  the  three  bright  bells;  they 
got  into  his  blood  as  well.  And  it  was  blood  always 
susceptible  to  a  sudden  impulse;  that  was  a  thing  Jan 
did  not  see  in  himself,  though  all  his  escapades  came  of 
that  hereditary  drop  of  pure  recklessness.  It  did  not  often 
come  to  a  bubble,  but  when  it  did  the  precipitate  was 
some  rash  act. 

Already  the  street  was  "alive  with  boys  and  masters," 
like  another  more  famous  but  not  more  dear;  masters  in 
silken  hoods,  masters  in  humble  rabbit-skins,  and  boys 
in  cut-away  coats,  boys  in  Eton  jackets.  Jan  had  put 
on  his  Sunday  tails  as  usual;  it  had  never  occurred  to 
him  not  to  dress  that  morning  as  a  member  of  the  school 
still  subject  to  the  rules.     His  school  cap  was  already 


354  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

packed,  a  sad  memento  filled  with  collars.  He  had  it  out 
in  an  instant,  and  the  collars  strewed  the  floor,  for  he  was 
going  to  chapel  whether  they  liked  it  or  not.  They  would 
never  make  a  scandal  by  turning  him  out,  but  he  must 
slip  in  at  the  last  moment  after  everybody  else,  and  the 
last  bell  had  not  begun  yet.  Jan  was  waiting  for  it  in 
great  excitement,  touching  up  his  hair  in  the  dressing- 
room,  when  the  landing  shook  to  a  familiar  stride  and 
the  bedroom  door  opened  unceremoniously  for  the  second 
time  that  afternoon. 

"  Rutter !     Where  are  you,  Rutter  ?  " 

Heriot,  of  course,  when  he  was  least  wanted!  Jan 
slipped  behind  the  dressing-room  door,  and  saw  him 
through  the  crack  as  he  looked  in  hastily.  Luckily  there 
was  no  time  for  an  exhaustive  search.  Heriot  gave  it 
up,  the  door  below  drowned  the  opening  strokes  of  the 
last  bell,  and  Jan  had  shut  it  softly  in  his  turn  before 
they  stopped. 

The  fellows  went  into  chapel  there  in  droves  under 
gowned  and  hooded  shepherds.  Jan  so  timed  matters  as 
to  enter  in  the  wake  of  the  last  lot,  but  Avell  before  the 
appearance  of  Mr.  Thrale  and  his  chaplain.  Not  being 
in  the  choir,  his  place  in  chapel,  where  the  seats  were 
allotted  on  a  principle  unknown  to  the  boys,  was  merci- 
fully unexalted,  and  he  reached  it  with  no  worse  sign  or 
portent  than  the  raised  eyebrows  and  whispered  welcome 
of  his  immediate  neighbours.  A  congregation  of  four 
hundred  persons  absorbs  even  a  Captain  of  Cricket  more 
effectually  than  he  thinks.  And  a  voluntary,  bright  and 
exhilarating  as  all  the  music  in  that  chapel,  gave  him 
heart  and  hope  until  the  arrival  of  the  officiating  pair  af- 
forded an  ineffable  sense  of  security  and  relief. 

Jan  stood  up  with  the  rest,  not  quite  at  his  full 
height,  yet  with   his  eyes   turned   in   sheer  fascination 


HIS  LAST  FLING  355 

towards  the  little  old  Head  Master.  He  looked  very- 
pale  and  stern,  but  his  eyes  could  not  have  been  fixed 
more  steadfastly  in  front  of  him  if  he  himself  had  been 
marching  to  his  doom.  In  his  left  hand  he  held  some- 
thing that  Jan  was  glad  to  see;  it  was  dear  old  Jerry's 
purple  and  embroidered  sermon-case,  a  gift  no  doubt,  and 
yet  almost  an  incongruous  vanity  in  that  uncompromis- 
ing hand. 

Jan  sank  down  and  breathed  his  thanks  for  the  last 
mercy  of  this  service,  for  his  perhaps  undeserved  escape 
from  open  humiliation  and  public  shame.  It  was  not  to 
be  seen  through  his  forcible  composure,  but  the  glow  of 
momentary  victory  filled  every  cell  of  a  heart  which  the 
bells  had  first  expanded.  And  he  had  never  joined  in  the 
quick  and  swin^ng  psalms  with  a  zest  more  grateful  to 
himself  or  so  distressing  to  one  or  two  of  his  hypercritical 
neighbours;  there  could  not  have  been  much  wrong  with 
Rutter,  either  physically  or  morally,  these  opined;  or 
else  he  had  been  let  off,  and  was  already  wallowing  in  an 
indecent  odour  of  sanctity. 

Wallowing  he  was,  but  for  once  only  in  the  present, 
without  dwelling  on  old  days  or  on  the  wrath  already 
come.  This  was  not  the  house  of  wrath,  but  of  brightness 
and  light;  he  was  not  going  to  darken  it  for  the  last  time 
with  cheap  memories  and  easy  phantoms.  Any  fool  could 
think  of  his  first  Sunday,  and  recall  his  first  impressions 
of  chapel;  it  was  rather  Jan's  desire  so  to  receive  his  last 
impression  as  to  have  something  really  worth  recalling  all 
the  days  of  his  life;  but  even  that  was  a  vague  and  sec- 
ondary consideration,  whereas  the  present  recompense 
was  certain,  vivid,  and  acute. 

One  wonders  whether  any  fellow  ever  loved  a  public- 
school  chapel  as  much  as  Jan  loved  his  that  afternoon, 
and  not  from  the  conscious  promptings  of  reverence  and 


356  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

piety,  but  purely  as  a  familiar  place  of  peace  and  comfort 
which  he  might  never  see  again.  The  circumstances  were 
probably  unique,  and  they  gave  him  that  new  eye  for  an 
old  haunt  which  had  been  opened  on  the  pitch  the  day 
before.  But  then  he  had  been  as  a  dying  man,  and  now 
he  was  as  the  dead  come  sneaking  back  to  life  for  an  hour 
or  less;  the  defiant  enjoyment  of  forbidden  fruit  was  among 
the  springs  of  his  infinite  exaltation. 

The  great  east  window  made  the  first  impress  on  his 
sensitised  film  of  vision;  he  had  not  been  at  the  school 
four  years,  on  a  cricketer's  easy  footing  with  so  many 
of  the  masters,  without  hearing  that  window  frankly  de- 
preciated; but  it  was  light  and  bright,  and  good  enough 
for  Jan.  Then  there  were  the  huge  brass  candelabra  in 
the  chancel,  pyramids  of  light  on  winter  evenings,  trees 
of  gold  this  golden  afternoon;  for  the  sununer  sun  came 
slanting  in  over  everybody's  right  shoulder,  as  all  sat  in 
rows  facing  the  altar,  and  not  in  the  long  opposing  lines  of 
other  school  chapels.  Tablets  to  Old  Boys  who  had  lived 
great  lives  or  died  gallant  deaths  brought  a  sigh  of  envy 
for  the  first  time.  They  were  the  only  sight  that  re- 
minded Jan  sorely  of  himself,  until  he  looked  up  and  saw 
dear  old  Jerry  standing  in  his  marble  pulpit  for  the  last 
time.  The  hymn  ceased.  The  organ  purred  like  a  cat 
until  the  last  stop  had  been  driven  in.  Jan  supposed  it 
must  have  done  it  always.  A  sparrow  chirped  outside, 
and  Mr.  Thrale  pronounced  the  invocation  in  that  voice 
which  knew  no  lip-service,  but  prayed  and  preached  as  it 
taught  and  thundered,  from  the  heart. 

"He  that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it:  and  he  that 
loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it." 

That  was  his  text;  and  many  there  were  present,  boys 
and  Old  Boys,  masters  and  masters'  wives,  who  reverenced 
the  preacher  before  all  living  men,  yet  knew  what  was 


HIS  LAST  FLING  357 

coming  and  faced  it  with  something  akin  to  resignation. 
Life  was  the  first  word  in  his  language,  if  not  his  last.  It 
meant  so  much  to  him.  He  never  used  it  in  the  narrow 
sense.  True  Life  was  his  simple  watchword;  where  the 
noun  was,  the  adjective  was  never  far  away,  and  together 
the  two  rolled  out  like  noble  thunder.  The  corporate  life, 
the  life  of  a  nation,  the  life  of  that  school,  it  was  into  those 
great  streams  that  he  sought  to  pour  the  truth  that  was  in 
him — sometimes  at  the  expense  of  the  individual  ripple. 
Boys  do  not  listen  to  abstractions;  abstract  truths  are 
better  read  than  heard  by  boy  or  man.  Mr.  Thrale  was 
too  elusive,  perhaps  too  deep,  for  ordinary  ears;  in  his 
daily  teaching  he  was  direct,  concrete,  and  dramatic,  but 
from  his  pulpit  he  soared  above  heads  of  all  ages.  Yet 
that  earnest  voice  and  noble  mien,  which  had  so  impressed 
Jan  on  his  very  first  Sunday  in  the  school,  were  as  the 
voice  from  Sinai  and  the  face  of  God  to  him  to-day. 

He  began  by  drinking  in  every  syllable;  but  again  it 
was  too  soon  the  look  and  tone  rather  than  the  words  that 
thrilled  him.  He  began  listening  with  eyes  glued  to  that 
noble  countenance  in  its  setting  of  silver  hair;  but  soon 
they  drooped  to  the  edge  and  corners  of  the  purple  sermon- 
case,  to  the  leaves  that  rose  and  fell,  at  regular  intervals, 
under  that  strong,  unrelenting,  and  yet  most  tender  hand. 
Jan  could  feel  its  farewell  grip  again;  he  was  back  in  the 
study  full  of  garden  smells  and  midges  in  the  lamplight 
.  .  .  Goodness!  He  really  had  been  back  there  for  an 
instant;  it  was  the  old  trouble  of  keeping  awake  at  this 
time  of  the  afternoon.  It  had  struck  him  painfully  in 
others,  on  his  very  first  Sunday  in  the  school;  but  almost 
ever  since  he  had  felt  it  himself,  say  after  a  long  walk; 
and  he  simply  could  not  help  feeling  it  after  an  almost 
sleepless  night  and  that  condemned  man's  allowance  of 
beer.  .  .  . 


358  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

I  sayl  It  was  incredible,  it  was  contemptible,  un- 
pardonable in  Jan  of  all  the  congregation  that  sunny 
afternoon.  But  it  would  not  happen  again;  something 
had  awakened  him  once  and  for  all. 

It  was  something  in  the  old  man's  voice.  His  voice 
had  changed,  his  manner  had  changed,  he  was  no  longer 
reading  from  the  purple  case,  but  speaking  directly  and 
dramatically  as  was  his  wont  elsewhere.  His  hands  were 
clasped  upon  his  manuscript.  He  was  looking  steadfastly 
before  him — just  a  trifle  downward — looking  indeed  Jan's 
way,  in  clear-sighted  criticism,  in  gentle  and  yet  strong 
rebuke. 

"...  There  is  the  life  of  the  individual  too.  'He 
that  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it:  and  he  that  loseth  his 
life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it.'  But  let  him  be  sure  for 
whose  sake  he  would  lose  his  life;  let  him  not  take  his 
own  life,  on  any  provocation  or  under  temptation  whatso- 
ever— not  even  to  save  his  dearest  friend — for  Christ  did 
not  make  and  cannot  countenance  such  a  sacrifice.  No 
soldier  of  Christ  can  die  by  his  own  hand,  even  to  save 
his  comrade;  he  must  think  of  the  army,  think  of  those 
to  whom  his  own  life  is  valuable  and  dear,  before  he 
throws  it  away  from  a  mistaken  or  unbalanced  sense  of 
sacrifice.  I  will  have  no  false  or  showy  standards  of  self- 
sacrifice  in  this  school;  I  will  have  no  moral  suicides. 
Suicide  is  a  crime,  no  matter  the  motive;  evil  is  evil, 
good  cannot  come  of  it,  and  to  step  in  between  a  friend 
and  his  folly  is  to  stand  accessory  after  the  fact.  And 
yet — humanum  est  errare!  And  he  who  errs  only  to  save 
an  erring  brother  has  the  divine  spark  somewhere  in  his 
humanity:  may  it  light  his  brain  as  well  as  fire  his  heart, 
give  him  judgment  as  well  as  courage,  and  burn  out  of 
him  the  Upas  growth  of  wrong-headed  self-sacrifice. 
You  cannot  rob  Peter  to  pay  Paul,  just  because  you 


HIS  LAST  FLING  359 

happen  to  be  Peter  yourself.  Has  Paul  the  first  or  only 
claim  upon  you?  Yet  my  heart  goes  out  to  the  boy  or 
man  who  can  pick  his  own  pocket,  ay,  or  shed  his  own 
blood  for  his  friend  I  Blame  him  I  do,  but  I  honour  him, 
and  I  forgive  him." 

In  such  parables  spake  their  Master  to  those  who 
sat  daily  at  his  feet;  not  often  so  to  the  school  in  chapel, 
nor  was  it  to  them  that  he  was  speaking  now.  Yet  few 
indeed  knew  that  he  was  addressing  Jan  Rutter,  who  sat 
spellbound  in  his  place,  chidden  and  yet  shriven,  head 
and  heart  throbbing  in  a  flood  of  light  and  warmth. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

VALE 

The  only  two  fellows  who  were  leaving  out  of  Heriot's 
house  had  been  dining  with  the  Heriots  on  the  last  night 
of  the  term.  One  of  them,  after  holding  forth  to  Miss 
Heriot  like  a  man  and  a  brother,  had  gone  on  to  the  San- 
atorium to  take  leave  of  a  convalescent;  the  other  accom- 
panied Mr.  Heriot  into  the  jumble  of  books  and  papers, 
old  oak  and  the  insignia  of  many  hobbies,  which  made  his 
study  such  an  uncomfortable  yet  stimulating  little  room. 
It  appeared  smaller  and  more  crowded  than  ever  when 
invaded  by  two  tall  ungainly  men;  for  the  young  fellow, 
though  never  likely  to  be  as  lanky  as  the  other,  but  al- 
ready sturdier  in  build,  stood  about  six  feet  from  his 
rather  flat  soles  to  the  unruly  crest  of  his  straight  light 
hair.  A  fine  figure  of  a  man  he  made,  and  still  under 
nineteen;  yet  his  good  and  regular  features  were  perhaps 
only  redeemed  from  dulness  by  a  delightfully  stubborn 
mouth,  and  by  the  dark  eyes  that  followed  Heriot  affec- 
tionately about  the  room. 

"There's  one  thing  we've  had  in  common  from  the 
start,"  said  Heriot,  "and  that's  our  infernally  untidy 
studies!  I  remember  Loder  speaking  to  me  once  about 
yours.  I  brought  him  in  here  to  discuss  the  point,  and 
he  went  out  agreeing  that  indifference  to  your  surroundings 
doesn't  necessarily  spell  the  complete  scoundrel.  But  it 
isn't  a  merit  either,  Rutter,  and  I  expect  Carpenter  to 
embellish  life  more  than  either  of  us." 

360 


VALE  361 

"I  wonder  what  he'll  do,  sir?" 

"  Get  things  into  the  Granta  for  a  start.  Not  all  his 
things;  his  style  wants  purging.    Smoke,  Rutter?" 

Heriot  was  filling  his  own  pipe;  but  it  was  one  thing 
for  a  master  to  consider  himself  free  to  smoke  before  a 
leaving  boy,  on  the  last  night  of  the  term,  in  defiance  of 
Mr.  Thrale's  despotic  attitude  on  the  point,  and  quite 
another  thing  for  him  to  offer  the  boy  a  cigarette.  Jan 
declined  the  abrupt  invitation  with  an  almost  shocked 
embarrassment. 

"  I  thought  a  cigarette  was  no  use  to  you,"  said  Heriot, 
laughing.  "And  yet  youVe  never  gone  back  to  your 
pipe,  I  believe  ?  " 

"Sir!" 

Heriot  was  smiling  the  beatified  smile  that  always 
broke  through  his  first  cloud. 

"You  don't  suppose  I  didn't  know,  Rutter,  that  you 
used  to  smoke  when  you  first  came  here  ?  " 

"  You  never  let  me  see  that  you  knew  it,  sir." 

"You  never  let  me  catch  you  I  I  *  smelt  it  off  you,* 
as  they  say,  all  the  same;  but  I  shouldn't  have  done  so  if 
I  hadn't  known  all  those  things  I  was  not  supposed  to 
know." 

"It  was  magnificent  of  you  to  hush  them  up  as  you 
did!" 

"It  was  a  duty.  But  it  wouldn't  have  been  quite 
fair  to  trade  on  one's  knowledge  at  the  same  time." 

"  Every  master  wouldn't  look  at  it  like  that." 

"  Perhaps  I  had  a  sneaking  sympathy  as  well,"  laughed 
Heriot,  when  he  had  blown  a  fresh  cloud.  "Still,  I 
should  have  caught  you  if  you  hadn't  given  it  up;  and 
I've  often  wondered  why  you  ever  did.'* 

"  It  was  all  Mr.  Relton,"  said  Jan  after  a  pause.  "  I 
promised  him  I  wouldn't  smoke  if  I  got  into  the  Eleven." 


362  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"Relton,  eh?"  Jan  found  himself  gazing  into  still 
spectacles.  "  I've  been  wondering  lately,  Rutter,  whether 
you're  the  fellow  he  thought  he  saw  at  the  fair  ? " 

Jan  was  more  taken  aback  than  he  had  been  about 
the  smoking.  This  was  the  first  time  Heriot  had  ever 
mentioned  the  ancient  escapade  which  had  come  to  light 
with  so  much  else  a  month  ago.  It  was  the  one  thing 
they  had  not  threshed  out  since  the  Sunday  after  Founder's 
Day,  and  yet  on  that  awful  Saturday  night  Jan  felt  that 
Heriot  had  been  twice  on  the  edge  of  the  subject,  and 
twice  stopped  short  because  he  could  not  trust  himself  to 
discuss  it  calmly.  Getting  out  of  the  best  house  in  the 
school  was  an  offence  not  to  be  condoned  or  belittled  by 
the  best  house-master,  even  after  two  long  years  and  a 
quarter.  So  Jan  had  felt  till  this  minute;  even  now  he 
had  to  face  a  lingering  austerity  behind  the  fixed  glasses. 

"Did  he  tell  you  he  saw  somebody,  sir?" 

"Not  in  so  many  words.  He  came  in  and  asked 
what  I  thought  would  happen  to  a  fellow  who  got  out 
and  went  to  the  fair.  I  told  him  what  I  knew  would 
happen.  Then  he  began  to  hedge  a  bit,  and  I  smelt  a 
rat  before  he  went.  But  I  little  dreamt  it  was  a  rat  from 
my  own  wainscoti  However,  I'm  not  going  to  ask  any 
questions  now." 

Cunning  old  Heriot  I  Jan  made  a  clean  breast  on  the 
spot,  conceiving  that  the  whole  truth  said  more  for  Dud- 
ley Relton  than  Bob  Heriot  was  the  man  to  gainsay  when 
he  heard  it.  But  Jan  added  a  good  deal  on  his  own  ac- 
count, ascribing  even  more  than  was  justly  due  to  that 
old  night's  work,  and  yet  extracting  an  ultimate  admis- 
sion that  meant  much  from  Mr.  Heriot. 

"I'm  glad  he  took  the  law  into  his  own  hands,  Jan; 
it  would  be  an  affectation  to  pretend  I'm  not,  at  this  time 
of  day.    But  I'm  thankful  I  never  knew  about  it  when  he 


VALE  363 

was  here!  What  beats  me  most  is  your  own  audacity  in 
marching  out,  as  you  say,  without  the  least  premedita- 
tion, and  therefore  presumably  without  any  sort  or  shape 
of  disguise  ?  " 

Jan  took  his  courage  between  his  teeth. 

"  I  not  only  walked  out  of  your  own  door,  sir,  but  I 
went  and  walked  out  in  your  own  coat  and  hat!" 

Heriot  flushed  and  flashed.  He  could  not  have  been 
the  martinet  he  was  without  seeing  himself  as  such,  and 
for  the  moment  in  a  light  injurious  to  that  essential 
quahty.  Then  he  laughed  heartily,  but  not  very  long, 
and  his  laughter  left  him  grave. 

"You  were  an  awful  young  fool,  you  know!  It  would 
have  been  the  end  of  you,  without  the  option  of  a  prae- 
postors' licking,  if  not  with  one  from  me  thrown  in! 
But  you  may  tell  Dudley  Relton,  when  you  see  him  out 
there,  that  I'm  glad  to  know  what  a  debt  I've  owed  him 
these  last  three  years.  I  won't  write  to  him,  in  case  I 
might  say  something  else  while  I  was  about  it.  But 
Lord!  I  do  envy  you  both  the  crack  you'll  have  in  those 
forsaken  wilds!" 

Mr.  Heriot  perhaps  pictured  the  flourishing  port  of 
Geelong  as  a  bush  township,  only  celebrated  for  Dudley 
Relton  and  his  young  barbarians.  Colonial  geography, 
unUke  that  of  Ancient  Greece,  was  not  then  a  recognised 
item  in  the  public-school  curriculum.  It  may  be  now; 
but  on  the  whole  it  is  more  probable  that  Mr.  Heriot  was 
having  a  litUe  dig  at  the  land  to  which  he  grudged  Jan 
Rutter  even  more  than  Dudley  Relton.  And  Jan  really 
was  going  to  the  wilderness,  or  a  lodge  therein  where  one 
of  the  uncles  on  his  mother's  side  ran  sheep  by  the  hundred 
thousand.  It  was  said  to  be  a  good  opening.  Jan  liked 
the  letters  he  had  read  and  the  photographs  he  had  seen; 
and  if  that  uncle  proved  a  patch  on  the  one  in  the  Indian 


364  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

Army,  he  was  certain  to  fall  on  his  feet;  but  his  house- 
master held  that  after  a  more  or  less  stormy  schooling  the 
peace  (with  cricket)  of  the  University  would  have  replen- 
ished the  man  without  impairing  the  eventual  squatter. 
The  immediate  man  was  Mr.  Heriot's  chief  concern;  but 
when  the  thing  had  been  decided  against  him,  after  a  brief 
correspondence  with  the  Revd.  Canon  Ambrose,  he  saw 
the  best  side  of  a  settled  future,  and  took  an  extra  interest 
from  his  own  point  of  view. 

"  What  are  your  sheep  going  to  get  out  of  your  Public 
School?"  said  Heriot.  "Will  you  herd  them  any  better 
for  having  floundered  through  the  verbs  in  /it  ?  Don't  you 
think  a  lot  that  you  have  learnt  here  will  be  wasted  ?  " 

"I  hope  not,  sir,"  replied  Jan,  with  the  solemn  face 
due  to  the  occasion,  though  there  was  an  independent 
twinkle  behind  Heriot's  glasses. 

"  So  do  I,  indeed,"  said  he.  "  But  I  shall  be  interested ; 
you're  a  bit  of  a  test  case — ^you  see — and  you  may  help  us 
all." 

"I  only  know  I'm  jolly  glad  I  came  here,"  said  Jan 
devoutly.  "  I  wasn't  once,  but  I  am  now,  and  have  been 
long  enough." 

"  But  what  have  you  gained  ?  "  asked  Heriot.  "  That's 
what  I  always  want  to  know — for  certain.  A  bit  of  Latin 
and  a  lot  of  cricket,  no  doubt;  but  how  far  are  they  coming 
in  ?  If  you  get  up  a  match  at  the  back  of  beyond,  you'll 
spoil  it  with  your  bowling.  On  the  other  hand,  of  course, 
you'll  be  able  to  measure  your  paddocks  in  parasangs  and 
call  your  buggy-horses  Dactyl  and  Spondee — or  Hex  and 
Pen  if  you  like  it  better!" 

Jan  guffawed,  but  there  was  an  unsatisfied  sound  about 
Heriot's  chuckle. 

"  I  want  a  fellow  like  you,  Rutter,  to  get  as  nearly  as 
possible  100  per  cent,  out  of  himself  in  life;  and  I  should 


VALE  365 

like  to  think  that — what? — say  10  or  20  per  cent,  of  the 
best  of  you  came  from  this  place.  Yet  you  might  have 
learnt  to  bowl  as  well  on  any  local  ground.  And  I  wonder 
if  we've  taught  you  a  single  concrete  thing  that  will  come 
in  useful  in  the  bush.  '* 

"I  might  have  been  a  pro.  by  this  time,"  said  Jan,  set 
thinking  of  his  prospects  in  his  father's  life-time,  "I 
certainly  was  more  used  to  horses  when  I  came  here  than 
I  am  now.'* 

"It  isn't  as  if  we'd  taught  you  book-keeping,  for 
instance,"  continued  Heriot,  pursuing  his  own  line  of 
thought.  "That,  I  believe,  is  an  important  job  on  the 
most  remote  stations;  but  I  doubt  if  we've  even  fitted 
you  to  audit  books  that  have  been  kept  for  you.  The 
only  books  we  have  rubbed  into  you  are  the  very  ones 
you'll  never  open  again.  And  what  have  you  got  out  of 
them?" 

"I  can  think  of  one  thing,"  said  Jan — "and  I  got  it 
from  Mr,  Haigh,  too!  Possunt  quia  posse  videntur — ^you 
can  because  you  think  you  can.  I've  often  said  that 
to  myself  when  there  was  a  good  man  in — and  sometimes 
I've  got  him!" 

"  That's  good  I "  exclaimed  Heriot.  "  That's  fine,  Jan ; 
you  must  let  me  tell  Haigh  that.  Can  you  think  of  any- 
thing else?" 

"  I  don't  know,  sir.  I  never  was  much  good  at  work. 
But  sometimes  I've  thought  it  teaches  you  your  place,  a 
school  like  this." 

"It  does — if  you  want  teaching.     But  you " 

"I'd  learnt  it  somewhere  else,  but  I  had  it  to  learn 
all  over  again  here. " 

"  You  always  have — each  time  you  get  your  step — that's 
one  of  the  chief  points  about  promotion!  You  may  have 
been  schoolmastering  for  fifteen  years,  but  you've  got  to 


366  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

learn  your  place  even  in  your  own  house  when  you  get 
one." 

That  touch  put  Jan  more  at  his  ease. 

"And  you  may  have  been  in  the  Eleven  two  or  three 
years,"  said  he,  "but  you've  got  a  new  job  to  tackle  when 
you're  captain.  They  say  there's  room  at  the  top,  but 
there  isn't  room  to  sit  down!" 

"That  was  worth  learning!"  cried  Heriot,  eagerly. 
"  I'm  not  sure  it  wasn't  worth  coming  here  to  pick  up  that 
alone.  And  you'll  manage  your  men  all  right,  though 
I  daresay  they're  not  any  easier  out  there  than  here. 
That's  all  to  the  good,  Rutter. " 

"But  suppose  I  hadn't  been  a  left-hand  bowler?" 

Jan  grinned ;  it  had  struck  him  as  a  poser. 

"Well,  you'd  have  come  to  the  front  in  something 
else.  You  did,  you  know,  in  other  things  besides  cricket. 
It's  a  case  of  character,  and  that  was  never  wanting. " 

But  if  he  had  not  been  an  athlete  at  all!  That  was 
the  real  poser.  Heriot  was  glad  it  was  not  put  to  him. 
It  would  have  been  unanswerable  in  the  case  of  perhaps 
half  the  athletes  in  the  school.  What  would  Goose  have 
been? 

"Then  there's  manners,"  said  Jan,  who  could  warm 
up  to  a  discussion  if  he  was  given  time.  "But  I  doubt 
I'm  no  judge  of  them. " 

"They're  the  very  worst  criterion  in  the  world,  Jan. 
The  only  way  to  use  your  judgment,  there,  is  not  to  judge 
anybody  on  earth  by  his  manners." 

That  was  not  quite  what  Jan  meant,  but  he  felt  vaguely 
comforted  and  Heriot  breathed  again.  He  was  not  a  man 
who  could  say  what  he  did  not  mean  to  people  whom  he 
did  care  about.  He  knew  that  Jan  could  still  be  uncouth, 
that  it  might  tell  against  him  here  and  there  in  life,  and 
yet  that  what  he  meant  was  no  more  than  flotsam  on  the 


VALE  367 

surface  of  a  noble  stream — strong,  transparent,  deep — and 
in  its  depths  still  undefiled.  Indeed,  there  were  no  lees  in 
Jan.  And  Heriot  loved  him;  and  they  fell  to  talking  for 
the  last  time  (and  almost  the  first)  of  old  Thrale's  sermon 
on  the  Sunday  after  the  Old  Boys'  Match,  and  the  curious 
fact  that  he  meant  Jan  to  be  there,  that  Heriot  himself 
had  come  to  fetch  him;  that  was  when  Jan  hid  behind  the 
door,  little  dreaming  that  Evan  had  owned  up  everything 
on  learning  what  had  happened. 

"I  might  have  known  he  would!"  said  Jan  fondly. 
"It  was  only  a  question  of  time;  but  you  say  he  didn't 
hesitate  an  instant?  He  wouldn't!  But  thank  good- 
ness he  didn't  go  and  make  bad  worse  like  I  did  for 
him.  It  would  have  killed  him  to  get  expelled;  he 
says  it  was  the  bare  thought  that  very  nearly  did,  as  it 
was.'* 

Jan  did  not  see  that  was  a  confession  he  could  not  have 
made,  or  have  had  to  make,  about  himself;  and  Heriot  did 
not  point  it  out  to  him.  Presently  Chips  came  in  from 
the  Sanatorium.  He  reported  Evan  as  convalescent  in 
body  and  mind,  and  so  appreciative  of  the  verses  on  the 
Old  Boys'  Match  in  the  July  Mag.  that  he  was  getting 
them  framed  with  the  score. 

"We've  been  talking  about  what  you  fellows  get  out 
of  a  school  like  this,"  said  Heriot.  "If  you  ever  take  to 
your  pen,  I  think  you  may  owe  us  more  than  most,  Car- 
penter; but  there  was  one  man  once  who  said  what 
we're  all  three  probably  thinking  to-night.  Here's  his 
little  book  of  verses.  I've  had  a  copy  bound  for  each  of 
you.     Here  they  are." 

The  little  books  were  bound  in  the  almost  royal  blue 
of  the  Eleven  sash  and  cap-trimming.  Carpenter  had 
scarcely  opened  his  when  he  exclaimed,  "Here's  an  old 
friend!"  and  read  out: 


368  FATHERS  OF  MEN 

"They  told  me,  Heraclitus,  they  told  me  you  were  dead, 
They  brought  me  bitter  news  to  hear  and  bitter  tears  to  shed. 
I  wept,  as  I  remembered,  how  often  you  and  I 
Had  tired  the  sim  with  talking  and  sent  him  down  the  sky." 

"  Rather  an  old  enemy,  that, "  said  Jan,  grinning, 

"  Then,  my  good  fellow,  you're  incapable  of  appreciat- 
ing four  of  the  most  classically  perfect  lines  in  a  modern 
language!" 

Heriot  had  quite  turned  on  Jan.  It  took  Chips  to 
explain  their  former  acquaintance  with  the  lines,  which 
he  did  with  much  gusto.  And  then  they  all  three  laughed 
heartily  over  his  misconstruction  of  "Still  are  thy  quiet 
voices,  thy  nightingales,  awake,"  in  the  second  stanza,  and 
roared  at  Jan's  nostro  loquendo  in  the  first. 

"But  that's  not  the  poem  I  mean,"  said  Heriot,  bor- 
rowing Jan's  copy.  "  It's  this  *  Retrospect  of  School  Life.' 
Can  you  stand  it?" 

"Rather,  sir!" 

And  Heriot  read  a  verse  that  made  them  hold  their 
breath;  then  this  one,  with  his  head  turned  towards  Jan, 
and  a  rich  tremor  in  his  virile  voice: 


'There  courteous  strivings  with  my  peers, 

And  duties  not  bound  up  in  books, 
And  courage  fanned  by  stormy  cheers, 

And  wisdom  writ  in  pleasant  looks, 
And  hardship  buoyed  with  hope,  and  pain 

Encoimtered  for  the  common  weal, 
And  glories  void  of  vulgar  gain. 

Were  mine  to  take,  were  mine  to  feel." 


" Isn't  that  rather  what  we  were  driving  at?"  he  asked 
of  Jan. 

Jan  nodded.  Chips  begged  for  more,  with  a  break  in 
his  voice.    Heriot  wagged  his  spectacles  and  went  on.  .  , 


VALE  369 

"Much  lost  I;  something  stayed  behind, 
A  snatch,  maybe,  of  ancient  song; 
Some  breathings  of  a  deathless  mind. 
Some  love  of  truth,  some  hate  of  wrong. 

"  And  to  myself  in  games  I  said, 

" '  What  mean  the  books?    Can  I  win  fame? 
I  would  be  hke  the  faithful  dead 

A  fearless  man,  and  pure  of  blame. 
I  may  have  failed,  my  School  may  fail; 

I  tremble,  but  thus  much  I  dare; 
I  love  her.     Let  the  critics  rail, 

My  brethren  and  my  home  are  there.'" 

Chips  had  laid  an  emotional  hand  on  Jan's  arm  after 
the  last  line  but  four;  and  Heriot  went  almost  as  far  after 
the  last  one  of  all;   but  Jan  had  himself  well  in  hand. 

"That's  what  you  and  I  were  forgetting,  and  we 
mustn't,"  Heriot  said  to  him.  "Your  name  isn't  only  up 
in  the  pavilion.  It's  in  some  of  our  hearts  as  well.  Your 
brethren  and  your  home  are  here!" 

Still  Jan  looked  rather  stolid. 

"There's  just  one  line  I  should  like  to  alter,"  said  he 
with  hardihood.  "Do  you  mind  reading  the  first  verse 
over  again,  sir  ?  " 

And  Heriot  read: 

"  I  go,  and  men  who  know  me  not. 

When  I  am  reckoned  man,  will  ask, 
" '  What  is  it  then  that  thou  hast  got 

By  drudging  through  that  five-year  task? 
What  knowledge  or  what  art  is  thine? 
Set  out  thy  stock,  thy  craft  declare.' 
Then  this  child-answer  shall  be  mine, 
'  I  only  know  they  loved  me  there. ' " 

"It's  just  that  last  line,"  said  Jan.  "It  should  be 
the  other  way  about. " 

THE  END 


THE  NOVELS  OF  E.  W.  HORNUNG 

Published  by  CHARLES   SCRIBNBR'S   SONS 
153-X57  FIFTH  AVENUE  NEW  YORK 

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